The Winding Road
by Nastrandir
Summary: Desperately needing a way to Spellhold, Tayna agrees to work for the Thieves' Guild. There, she finds the echoes of old alliances and the next step on her path.
1. Chapter 1

_A brief diversion back into Baldur's Gate, with no connection to my previous BG story or characterizations. A somewhat different style this time, more centred on moments and vignettes, and intended to be six parts long. As always, I own little, and reviews and thoughts are always welcome.  
_

_**Part One: The City of Coin**_

The wind coming in off the docks was brisk and freighted with salt. Even this late, the city below thrummed with the clamour of the night, footfalls and running and half-shouted conversations. Tayna leaned out of the casement for another long moment, her gaze picking out the torches near the market square, the wide looping lines of the alleyways, and the white-tipped roll of the waves.

Grudgingly, she slouched back in the windowseat. As reluctantly, she stared at the room around her, the heavy fall of the drapes and the table with its assortment of lanterns and parchment and the dagger she had left there.

Strange, she thought, to be back in the world and to have it change again so rapidly, so joltingly fast.

Fifteen days past, they had crammed themselves into one of the smaller rooms at the Copper Coronet, and only then because Jaheira apparently knew the stocky man at the tap. Fifteen days, while she had tasted the heavy stink of Irenicus' dungeon still on her clothes and in her mouth and along the shiny stripes of her scars. Fifteen days, while Yoshimo murmured that he knew something of the thieves here, of the way they worked, of the way they flitted through the city as if it might be theirs. Fifteen days, while she had begun to remember how to tease open locks and palm her daggers quietly and viciously and then, eventually, she had been introduced to Mae'Var.

And this morning, while the dawn light was still grey, she had killed him, her dagger carving his throat apart.

The knock at the door startled her out of her thoughts. "Yes, what?"

The door opened, letting in a flood of candlelight and Edwin Odesseiron, red robes whispering over the plush rugs.

"Oh, hello." She jerked her head at him, motioning him in. "Should I even ask why you're lurking around at this time of night?"

"Am I to presume from today's little adventure that you continue to work for Renal Bloodscalp?"

"Still haven't quite grasped the concept of a conversation, I see. And yes, with a name like that, when he hands me a guildhouse, how could I possibly say no?" When his expression stayed unreadable, she sighed. "Alright. You know what? I'm more strapped for coin than you probably were when you turned up here."

"I was not."

"Sure. You just got bored and decided to try a job change."

The side of his mouth shifted. "Mae'Var had need of my skills."

"Fair enough." She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, tired suddenly, the feeling of it washing under her skin. "Look. Think this through before you tell me I'm insane, alright?"

Edwin scowled. "Why? Are you about to propose marriage?"

"Nothing quite so terrifying." She let her hands slap back down onto her knees. "You want to work together?"

"Together," he repeated, as if she had asked him casually to take a stroll off the edge of the world.

"Yes. You and me. Well, and everyone else."

His eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Because I need a heap of gold. And you look like you could do with some fresh air."

"A searingly witty observation."

"I need a spellcaster, alright?"

"Ah. Now we come to the why of it." He clasped his hands together, his fingers heavy with the glint of jeweled rings.

"Gods above and below, you're stubborn as granite, you know?" She glared up at him. "I've only been in this city a few days. I've got nothing past a handful of copper, some shaky alliance with Renal Bloodscalp, and a long way to go to find Imoen again."

"I noticed her absence." His head tipped to one side. "How exactly did you manage to fail so spectacularly this time?"

She pushed back the sudden, vicious urge to shout at him to leave, take his damn spellbook and the slight smile she could see on his lips and walk away from her. "We were caught. Ambushed. And after a long time underground, we got ourselves out and that's when the damn Cowled Wizards showed up. They took her and I need to get her back. Along with lots of other trivial details."

"And so you come to me for help."

"Yes, I suppose so, and you can wipe that smug smirk off your face before I punch it off, wizard."

"Well," he said, and grinned mirthlessly. "Let us see if we can come to some beneficial agreement."

"The usual. You put in a share of the work, you get a share of the gold. You get too scared of anything big and ugly we need to fight, you can leave."

"As if I have ever shied from the battlefield," he retorted. "You have a plan?"

"That heap of gold I mentioned. Should get me some more help from the Shadow Thieves."

"Friends in low places," Edwin said, musingly. "This will take time, you realise."

"Of course I realise. Though I'm not exactly planning on lazing around for the next few weeks."

"No, I'm sure there's work aplenty for someone who enjoys rushing into fights with the kind of insane abandon you usually display."

She spluttered on a sudden laugh. "Gods, Edwin. And here I was worried that you'd've changed."

"Changed? _Me?_"

"Maybe found a heart somewhere." She pushed upright. "You want to stay on at the guildhouse? And no, I haven't checked the rest of the rooms for fleas just yet."

"Shame," Edwin said mildly. "Then we are agreed?"

"What, you want a handshake now? A scrawl in ink or blood?"

"Ink often stains worse than blood."

She grinned, crookedly. "True. Deal?"

"Very well."

"And yes," she said, before he could say anything else. "I'm sure you'll live to regret it, as well."

"Of that I have little doubt."

Left alone with the quiet and the fluttering lanternlight, Tayna leaned over the table. There, she blinked gritty eyes and forced herself to look at the mess of parchment again, names and numbers and Renal's brisk, unflinching instructions. Last remnants of Mae'Var's treachery to be chased down and done away with, and gold to be funneled through the docks and into Renal's counting-rooms, with the hazy promise of help to Brynnlaw Island.

Scowling to herself, she traced her way down the first sheaf of parchment again, the letters buckling under her gaze. Giving up, she trudged her way back into the windowseat and curled herself there until the lanterns sputtered out and sleep finally claimed her.

The morning brought the scent of brine at the windows, and Jaheira, as she bustled in, a tray in one hand. "Tayna? You're awake?"

"I am now." Squinting, she straightened up and winced when something in her shoulder pulled. "Breakfast? You're too good to me."

"I'm sure," Jaheira said wryly. "Did you sleep?"

"Not well," she admitted.

Jaheira nodded silently. She laid the tray on the table before she said, "It will take time."

"Yes. Yes, I know. I'll get there." The words came out too brightly and too fast, and she damn well knew Jaheira could hear straight through them.

"Yes." Jaheira waited until she was sitting, reaching for the fresh bread and crumbling cheese. "I do not mean to suggest that you are doing anything untoward."

Tayna frowned around the bread. "So what you really think, is..?"

"I know that things are uncertain."

"That's one way of saying it."

Jaheira sat in the chair opposite. "And I know it seems like we must rush after Imoen right away. But we do not know this city, and we do not know its streets or its people."

"You seem to be doing a lot better than me."

"Child. I'm older than you. Yes, I have been here before. A long time ago, before my path was tangled with yours."

"Thank you," Tayna said ruefully. "I suppose I deserved that."

Jaheira's gaze softened. "I simply hope that you are careful."

"I'm always careful. Well, alright. Not always." She stared down at the plate. "I guess I'm trying to find my footing right now. It's a lot of gold they're wanting, and it'll be a lot of days before I can hand it over."

"And every day is a day that Imoen is in Spellhold. Yes," Jaheira said fiercely. "I understand."

She exhaled sharply, the breath rushing from her chest. "And I can't very well do a damn thing to help her if I'm unprepared."

"Yes."

"Can I ask you something?"

Jaheira stiffened slightly. "Of course."

"The guildhouse. Good idea, bad idea, or catastrophically awful idea?"

A smile ghosted across Jaheira's mouth. "Sometimes the way forward we might prefer is not the one offered."

"So, partly good and partly bad. Least I'm not the only one thinking that."

"I did not say that. I think it will serve us well, to a point. Do not mire yourself in too deeply."

"Gods, I'm sorry. I don't mean to heap it all on you." Tayna scooped up a corner chunk of the cheese.

"You are not," Jaheira said, and there was that flatness in her voice again.

That wrenching flatness that Tayna knew masked the raw pain of grief, half-buried. She could ask again if Jaheira was fine, was well, but she supposed there was little point since they both knew it would be a lie. She recalled it, blade-sharp and terrible, how they had dragged themselves out and up into the sunlight, Jaheira on one side of her, Imoen on the other, Yoshimo and Minsc trailing behind. How the broken pieces of lives lay behind them, trapped under the stone.

"Well," Tayna said, her voice shattering the febrile silence. "I suppose I should go and learn just how many thieves are milling around under my roof right now, and how best to make them most useful."

* * *

The days unraveled beneath rippling grey skies and slowly, she learned the twisting streets of the city and its darkest corners and the paths the best marks took. Most days found her out of the guildhouse, or else sparring in the small courtyard, padded practice blades with Yoshimo eventually giving way to the careful grace of unsheathed steel. She learned each alleyway and each salt-whipped wharf in the docks, and to whom it belonged, and how best to have her thieves muscle their own way in. Most nights she slept badly, flinching awake when the wind gusted too hard against the casement. More than once she woke sodden with sweat, her heart galloping, and half-expecting to see the shadows shift and blur and shape themselves into Irenicus.

A crisp morning saw her in the courtyard, sword in hand and circling Yoshimo as he watched her with hawkish intensity. He moved first, side-stepping and arcing his blade towards her. She blocked, twisting her wrist in the same motion. Another snake-fast step took him past her and she followed, her gaze never leaving his upraised sword. Across the courtyard and back, and back again, she matched him stroke for punishing stroke.

Deceptively lightly, Yoshimo spun, his blade rattling hard against hers. She lunged further, the hilt of her sword snagging across his. He grinned, his black eyes dancing, and she had time to swear before he twisted, the flat of his blade thudding solidly against her shoulder.

"I yield," Tayna muttered, halfway to smiling regardless. She swiped at her hair, clinging to her forehead. "You win."

"You did well."

"Nice. Placate me some more, why don't you?"

Yoshimo's grin broadened. "Not at all, my friend."

She drove her sword back into its battered, unadorned scabbard. Breathing hard, she yanked at the laces at her collar before she touched her shoulder cautiously. "Be paying for that one in the morning."

She threw another smile to Yoshimo before crossing the courtyard. At the door, she discovered Edwin, standing with his shoulders against the wall and his expression unreadable.

"What?" she demanded. "You're about to offer advice? Suggestions?"

"As if you would listen."

"Well. I might pretend to."

"Charming," he said, angling one eyebrow up.

She paused long enough to glare at him. "I don't lecture you on your spellcasting."

"I beg to differ."

"Alright. That was _once_."

"You are," Edwin said, and hesitated. "Stronger and faster than I remember."

"My goodness. Was that my one compliment for the month?" She shouldered the door open and winced. "Did you need something in particular?"

"I have a letter for you, and the rather insistence presence of a Shadow Thief – ah, no, a Shadow _Mistress_ – going by the name of Ama, who demands _your_ presence."

Tayna jumped her way up the steps and into the cool gloom of the armoury. "Right now?"

"Not at all. After dark, at the Promenade. No weapons."

She snorted. "Right. She thinks I'm that stupid, does she?"

The wizard pressed a folded square of parchment into her hands. "She is certainly hoping so. (And given some of your prior choices, I can understand why.)"

"Very funny." She cracked the parchment open. "So what did you tell her?"

"That you would meet as requested," he answered, his voice suspiciously bland.

"Mmm. Think she'll mind if I bend the terms of the negotiation somewhat?"

"Given that I am assuming you will not be letting her live past the meeting should she unsurprisingly reveal herself to be treacherous, then I doubt she will have the time to form a significant opinion on the matter."

Tayna hid her smile. "Your mind is a slippery place to be, isn't it?"

"And yours is not?"

"Depends on the mood I'm in."

* * *

Rain rolled across the city, hammering against roofs and gutters. Soaked to the bone, Tayna slipped into the guildhouse after sunset, aching from the day and a new slice that crossed between her shoulders. Nodding to the cutpurses at the door, she ducked out of the sheeting rain and upstairs and into the bustling warmth of the kitchen. She paused long enough to peel off her gloves and hold her hands out to the crackling heat at the hearth. Indolent moments later she flopped onto the bench between Edwin and Yoshimo, still close enough to the fire that she could feel the wonderful seeping warmth of it.

"Some days I hate this city," she muttered.

"For any particular reason?" Yoshimo asked.

"Honest thieving's getting harder."

Edwin smirked. "Dipped your sticky little fingers in something you should not have, did you?"

Her cape was heavy with the rain, the long edges of it trailing. She shucked it off, and ignored Edwin's pointed glare when the wet fabric slid against him before pooling on the floor.

"Coming from the man who was hoping to blackmail the previous guildhouse leader, that's delightfully hypocritical." She reached for the ale jug and a cup and poured, waiting until the froth bumped the rim. "Actually I spent most of the morning knee-deep in the gods know what in the sewers, then tried to pickpocket a wizard, and then spent the afternoon in a planar prison. And then I got rained on walking back from the Five Flagons afterwards. Still glad you stayed here today?"

"Overwhelmingly," he muttered. "Wait. _Planar prison?_"

"Yes, actually." She gulped at the ale. "You remember the tiefling we ran into at the Five Flagons, Raelis Shai?"

"Yes. She wanted help tracking down a missing actor."

"That's the one. You assumed he was face-down in a brewery somewhere, or face-down in a brothel."

Edwin frowned. "And he was not. (A witty observation gone to waste, for once.)"

"No, he wasn't." She grinned and explained, the slow, frustrating crawl through the sewers, the wizard's gem, the whirling portal that had sucked her into the planar prison, the floor all treacherous and moving and sinking beneath her feet when she tried to move too fast.

Edwin blinked slowly at her. "So did you at least manage to acquire anything arcane or possibly useful from this planar prison?"

"Well, I may have made off with a few shiny things. You can look them over and see if anything grabs your fancy." She reached past his elbow, purloined a chunk of bread from his plate, and ignored his scowling response. "I love that you want to know more about the possibility of arcane artifacts than the wyvern I fought."

"The wyvern is presumably dead, and equally presumably, you did not think to bring its skin, tongue or blood for spell components. (Though perhaps understandably, since bottling wyvern blood can be a trial.)"

Tayna grinned and bit into the bread. "You are so predictable, wizard."

"I am not."

She dipped the bread into the rich swirl of the gravy. "So how much fun _aren't_ you having, given the hold the Cowled Wizards have over this city?"

"Most amusing."

"Are you finished eating?" When he did not reply, she eased his plate between them both. "Don't look at me like that. I've had a long day."

"Not long enough to halt the insufferable way your mouth runs."

"You want to get paid this week?"

Something close to a smile threatened at the corner of his mouth. "If at all possible."

* * *

The late evening air was brisk with the tang of salt. Tayna sat perched on the wall behind the guildhouse, the long low wall that ran in a wide, lazy loop around the back of the stables. Below, the cobbled streets sloped away towards the wharves, slick with spray and gleaming. For long moments she stared at the heaving surge of the sea, her gaze darting between the ships moored there, masts tilting slightly with every roll of the waves.

Beside one of her elbows lay an empty plate, and beside the other, an ale jug. She lifted the tankard and swallowed.

"I'm impressed. You managed to sneak out without that puppy-dog paladin following you."

Tayna snorted on the drink, coughed. "He's not a paladin. He's a priest. And how is it exactly that you can move so quietly wearing those?"

Edwin glanced down at his robes. "I am a man of many talents. (Not that these simian-brained fools seem to realise their good fortune in having me along.)"

She patted the wall beside her. "Come and sit. What brings you out here, anyway?"

He sat, the folds of his cowl veiling most of his profile. "This morning, you said you needed to speak to me."

"And then we spent the rest of the day running madly around the city. Yes."

"What do you expect if you say _yes_ to every single wretched individual who comes begging to your door with a melancholy story and an implausible excuse?"

"Lovely." She stared at the top of the tankard, aware of the wizard's unusual listening silence. "I don't remember. Not really. Not entirely. I remember some things. I remember Irenicus above me. How he'd cut and watch the blood run, and heal me up, and do it again, and again. As if he was trying to find something in me. Cut something out of me."

The words spilled out in a shaking rush and clumsily she reached for the tankard again.

"He never told you why."

"No. No. He spoke about potential. Gods know what potential he meant. He never – bastard never gave me the courtesy of any kind of explanation."

"He knew what you were?"

Despite herself, she smiled lopsidedly. "Oh, yes. I remember screaming at him what my name was, and he'd call me Bhaal's daughter. Stupid part is that that got me more angry. And he never even told me his name. We got it out of a bunch of terrified dryads he'd gotten his hands on. And no," she added. "I don't know what he was doing to them, and I didn't want to ask."

"Dryads," the wizard said thoughtfully. "What else?"

"Room upon room," she said. "Tanks. Jars. Some of them empty. Some of them with – well, things in them. Things that might have been human."

"So he was experimenting. Keeping captives alive in extreme conditions, perhaps."

"Yes, I thought the same." She grappled with it for a sudden lurching moment, the memory of it swallowing her thoughts. Forcing her voice flat, she said, "He had golems, and a whole damn contingent of duergar. Figured they were smithing for him. That or protection."

"That is quite the set-up." His head turned, his eyes narrowing. "Such an enterprise could not be undertaken quickly. Or easily."

"Or without a heap of gold to smooth the way." She shrugged. "And yes, I'm thinking what you're thinking."

"Are you, indeed?"

"You're wondering, with how long it must've taken him to prepare, whether he was waiting for me, or whether I was the first Bhaalspawn in the region to make his ears perk up."

"I would not have sunk to such phrasing, but yes. I was wondering."

"Thank you."

Edwin frowned. "For what, precisely?"

"For just listening."

"Well," he said, hovering as if he had to search for the words. "I can be magnanimous on occasion."

She nudged him. "Don't make a habit of it. I'll end up not recognizing you."

"I crumble beneath your wit." He turned, quickly enough that his knees bumped hers. "What will you do to him?"

"Find Imoen. Get her free."

"That is not what I asked."

She hesitated. "You going to be shocked if I say I want to give it all back to him, one day at a time until he can't think straight through the pain either?"

Edwin grinned wolfishly, all teeth. "On the contrary, I believe it to be only the beginnings of what you should give to him."

"Oh, you're so sweet sometimes. Anyone ever tell you that?"

"Never, and they would not wish to," he said pointedly. "How did it happen?"

"Why? So you can tell me what an idiot I was when we got ourselves ambushed?"

The wizard's eyebrows arched.

"Alright," she said grudgingly. "We'd cleared Baldur's Gate days before. Just wandering, you know? Nothing to do, nothing we needed to do. Few jobs here and there on the way through the countryside."

"And?"

"And that's actually it. I woke up one morning. It was before sunrise, and after I got out of the damn tent and before I got to the fire, someone had his arms around me and then I hit the ground very hard."

"His?"

"Not Irenicus," she said, and frowned. "At least, I don't think so. I don't know. I don't – some days it's harder to remember. What would you do if you were me?"

The wizard's gaze did not stray from the rolling waves, white-tipped and cold. "Take my anger to my foes, tear them apart, and after that, discover what potential Irenicus was talking about and use it to make clear my own power."

She grinned shakily. "I meant, what would you do if you were me and you had my personality and not yours?"

"Oh, limitations, is it? Then I suppose I would find time to rescue your brat of a friend, eviscerate Irenicus along the way, and then wander in circles wondering just what to do next."

"Sometimes I don't know why I bother asking you anything." She topped up the tankard, hesitated, and held it out to him. "Take it or don't take it."

Edwin clasped his hands around the tankard, eying the ale as if it should have been poisoned.

"Yes, I know you prefer wine. No, I'm not going back inside to find any for you."

"Well," he said, and lifted the tankard. "On such wretched occasions, one must suffer along with the lowborn."

"You're such a bastard sometimes," she said mildly. "Did you stop off in the counting-room today?"

"I did."

"Impressed?"

"Well," he said, and passed the tankard back. "A little."


	2. Chapter 2

_A huge thank you to everyone who's following this story. I own little as usual, and reviews and thoughts are always welcome.  
_

_**Part Two: Paths**_

Night closed over the guildhouse. The wind whipped in from the wharves, sharp and cold. Tayna traipsed her way into the kitchen, both shoulders aching and far too aware of the long slice that descended down the side of one of her legs. She found a plate and cold meat and the last of this morning's bread and made her way to the table. When she finally sat beside Jaheira, she noticed Edwin's frosty silence opposite.

"Alright," she said, and looked up. "What is it? You've been trying to burn a hole in the middle of my forehead since I sat down."

"A beholder nest. I cannot _believe_ you thought that was a good idea. (Foolish. Beyond foolish, even for her.)"

"I didn't know it was going to be a beholder nest until we got there."

"Evidently."

"Cult of the Unseeing Eye," she muttered. "How was I meant to know that meant beholders? Should've called it the Cult of the Thousand and One Eyes, Particularly That One That Follows You When You Try to Run Away."

"Indeed," he snapped.

"Fine. Stay here next time. No one's forcing you to pry yourself out of your library." Deliberately, she threw him a dazzling smile before turning her attention to Jaheira again. "Did I miss anything today?"

"Requests," Jaheira answered.

"Easy? Close? Well-paying?"

"The third one," she said wryly. "I have a letter of introduction and explanation from a Lord Jierdan Firkraag, and Minsc found himself a commission."

"Do I want to know?"

"Out in the Umar Hills," Jaheira said, and shrugged. "I told them both we'd consider it, no promises."

"The gold?"

"A fair amount, particularly for Lord Firkraag's request."

"What do we know about him?"

"Very little," Anomen answered from where he sat, elbows on the table. "I know the man's name, and I believe he has lands, many leagues out of the city. Strange that he would venture so far afield for help."

Tayna nodded. "What's he offering?"

"Ten thousand in gold," Jaheira said carefully.

"That much?"

"For monster hunting."

"That much for monster hunting," Tayna murmured. "What's the catch?"

"Drag yourself all those leagues out of the city and discover it," Edwin said.

"So you won't be coming with me?" She grinned. "You mean you don't want to wander the realms, gold the noble aim and monsters to slay to get it?"

"You sound like a story. A very badly-written one."

She reached for the carafe, topping up her glass before she responded. "You don't find feats of valour stirring?"

"Possibly. If they involve paladins being turned into tiny scorched parcels of food for angry dragons."

"You have a horribly vivid imagination, wizard."

Edwin leaned back in his chair. "As do you, harpy. Do you not recall telling me all the wonderfully hideous things you were tempted to do to Mae'Var when you realised he was partial to a little torture with his tea in the mornings?"

"Yes, yes. Making me a hypocrite, I remember." She folded a slice of bread around the last corner of crumbled cheese. "And must you keep calling me a harpy? Harpies tend on the old and crinkled side."

"True. And you are neither of those. What would you prefer? My fair maiden? Lady of the lustrous locks?"

"Better than being called a monkey again, I guess." She searched his carefully blank face for the smallest hint of a smile. "Do you practice that expression, or does it come naturally?"

* * *

The road wound out of the city, ribboning its way between the rising swells of the hills. The first afternoon brought rain, brisk and chill and falling from rippling grey clouds. Tayna huddled beneath the folds of her cape and silently remembered those first fraught days out of Candlekeep, she and Imoen and the unknown path unraveling before them. Nights spent wild-eyed and frightened beside the smallest fires they dared build, the both of them flinching at every rustling crackle of branches.

Her heel skidded against the damp, sliding ground and she swore. Squaring her shoulders, she quickened her pace until she was walking beside Jaheira, the druid's steps even and measured.

"Feel better?"

Jaheira's head tilted. "I'm sorry?"

"I know how you feel about cities even when you try to hide it."

Jaheira smiled. "Then yes. I do."

"Good. Me, I feel cramped from the hips down, and my feet are already wet."

"Come on," the druid said mildly. "The quicker we walk, the quicker we rest."

"Slave-driver."

The day wore away into a blustery evening, the trees arching beneath the snapping press of the wind. She ordered the others deeper into the forest, working their way away from the road, between moss-heavy trunks and past the twisting chatter of a stream. She chose first watch and later, when the fire was flickering down and the air turned bitter, she wondered why she had succumbed to such generosity. Shaking herself, she made herself quarter the camp again, treeline to stream and back, before sitting beside the twining flames.

The dawn found her gritty-eyed and glaring suspiciously down at her boots, still damp. Someone passed her a bowl, and she grunted out a brief thank-you. Reconsidering, she looked up and said, "Sorry, Anomen. Didn't sleep well."

"That is understandable." He sat beside her. As mildly, he said, "From what your friend Jaheira tells me, it has been difficult, these past weeks and before."

"Yes, the before part was particularly vexing." She smiled crookedly. "Do you have any thoughts on what we'll find?"

"I know this village in the Umar Hills is small. More a rest stop for couriers than anything else. I cannot imagine why such a place would be the target of a string of murders."

"Because it's small and out of the way?" She shrugged. "Have you been through the village before?"

"No. My travels with the Order have taken me across many leagues, but I am afraid there is little I know that will help in this case."

"No, that's alright." She threw him a smile. "I guess we'll just have to hope we have the good fortune to find out."

The hills rose high on both sides of the road, the steep-bridged valleys there fringed with trees and the clinging, wet greenery of ferns. The terrain proved slow-going and treacherous, the road turning into mud and snaking its way past dripping outcroppings and through wind-raked pine stands. When the night came down, thick and blanketing, Tayna called a halt. The darkness seemed to rush between the branches, seeping and thick. Even after they coaxed a fire into life, even after Edwin enspelled the flames higher, the flickering heat of it battered uselessly against the shadows. They ate silently, the meal bland but hot and finished quickly.

Tayna pushed upright and crossed the camp and back, her gaze fastened on the black sky above, the stars shrouded. For too long she stood staring at the waving trees, trying to see the shadows between them.

"What is it?" Jaheira asked, pausing beside her.

"You see anything strange?"

"No," Jaheira admitted. "And that troubles me. This forest – it feels wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Different. I'm not sure why."

"Double watch tonight?"

"Yes," Jaheira said, and nodded briskly. "Good idea."

In her tent, Tayna slept badly, too aware of the wind and the thrumming canvas walls. Eventually she surrendered, rolling over and reaching for her boots in the same motion. She heaved them on and staggered out into the night, the fluttering remnants of the fire meeting her squinting gaze.

"Anything?" she asked.

"No," Jaheira answered. "Minsc's walking the camp. Listen."

"I'm listening."

"No," the druid said, and tipped her head at the bending trees. "Listen."

She complied, closing her eyes and letting herself become aware of it, the forest and the winding darkness. The rippling whisper of it was all off, she realized, uneven. When something crackled far too close, she spun.

"Alright," Tayna said heavily. "Feels like we're being tracked. See anything?"

"Nothing. That's the problem."

"Alright," she said again, uselessly. She tightened one hand around her sword hilt. "You go and get some sleep."

"You're certain?"

"Dreams I got weren't any fun anyway."

Jaheira regarded her for a long, thoughtful moment. "Do not push yourself too hard, child."

"Not likely," she said.

"Of course."

Left alone when Jaheira turned away, she crossed back towards the stream again. Off to one side, she heard Minsc's careful footfalls as he prowled his way around the back of the tents. Slow cautious steps took her towards the treeline and deeper, under the swaying arch of the branches. She paused, breathing in the scything wind.

Too near, a branch snapped. She spun, sword unsheathed, and found herself staring at nothing but blank darkness. Eyes narrowed, she glared until she thought she saw something shifting, the shadows buckling around it. The darkness was _moving_, sliding over the raised tangles of roots and surging.

The first swing of her sword sank into whatever it was, the blade digging in and catching, catching on something she could not see. She yanked the blade free and whirled, the point dipping and driving in deep on the follow-up thrust. Another lunge tipped the thing – whatever it was – over, and she stumbled, following it.

"Tayna. Tayna?"

Minsc's voice, she realised, his usually confident tones edged with worry.

"I'm alright," she said, and straightened up. "Alright. It's – hells, Minsc. Can you see it?"

"We can see it," he answered. "It looks as if it is made of the night."

"Not sure if it planned to attack me or if I just annoyed it enough to do something." She jerked her sword clear of it. "We need to tell the others."

* * *

The next nights brought more of them, creatures carved of shadow, gliding soundlessly over loam and moss and rocks. Tayna ordered the others on faster, and called for torches and a wider fire-pit those evenings and early mornings they needed to slow their pace, to settle frayed nerves and grab small moments of rest.

The last hour before dawn was dark, the forest lidded under heavy cloud. Tayna crossed the clearing again, her eyes never leaving the trees. With the fire behind her, the shadows were twisting and leaping and twice she thought she saw something, slipping between the high tall trunks.

"We're close," Yoshimo said quietly.

"We'd better be," she answered tersely. "And they'd better have a decent inn so I can go sleep for about four days solid before even thinking about investigating this properly."

Yoshimo smiled, the movement easy and amused. "I do not think a single person could blame you, my friend."

"We'll see."

He opened his mouth, but she nudged him silent. She tipped her chin, and when he followed her gaze, he nodded.

"I see them," Yoshimo murmured.

"Get the others over here," she said, one hand dropping to her sword hilt.

"Right away."

She was aware of his footsteps, receding, and then the slithering sound of the shadow creatures as they spilled through the trees. They moved like poured oil, sliding and noiseless. She turned, her blade arcing up to meet the first one's onrushing attack. Her sword swung over the grasping reach of its claws, the point embedding somewhere in its chest before it collapsed.

It was over quickly, the juddering clamour of an ambush, and jarring minutes later, she stepped back as the last one crumpled to the ground.

Breath coming hard and ragged, she turned. "Well. Another nice interlude on our way."

"Alright?" Jaheira asked.

"Alright. We need to move. Sun's up soon."

Tayna stopped, looking across at the others, all of them wrapped in the silent aftermath.

Anomen, mopping blood from his sword. Yoshimo, eying a new cut along the back of one forearm, weeping blood. Jaheira, kneeling as she touched the ground where one of the shadow creatures had stood, claws digging soundlessly into the ground. Minsc, checking the catches on his armour. And Edwin, halfway to kneeling, one hand lodged against the trunk of a tree, and the other pressed to the side of his chest.

Tayna stared at his hand until she could see the blood welling there, thick and dark between his fingers. Brisk instants later she was beside him, catching his arm as he swayed.

"Lie down," she snapped. "_Now_, wizard."

Somehow she got him onto the ground, painfully aware that he was not speaking. That all she could hear from him was the staccato sound of him breathing. His robes were sodden, she realised, clinging to him and torn. She fumbled the ties at his collar and swore. Beside her, Jaheira knelt and worked his robes open, all measured calm.

"Stupid wizard," Tayna muttered. "You've gotten yourself all ripped up."

Punishingly bad timing, she supposed, along with the dark and the way they had been rushed. Someone pressed a waterskin into her hands and she dampened the wizard's shirt. As carefully, Jaheira eased the fabric up, stopping when it caught against the wounds. Crisply, she found her dagger and sliced his shirt apart.

"Oh, gods." For wavering moments, Tayna stared at the long, leaking gashes that crossed his chest. "Jaheira?"

"Hold him."

She obeyed, shifting so that she was sitting behind him, his head against her legs. She watched the surge of Jaheira's first spell, and then Anomen's, both of them leaning over the wizard's prone sprawl.

"Here," Jaheira said, and pushed a potion bottle into her hands. "Get this down him. All of it."

Another set of spells shivered and blurred the air, the tang of magic sharp. Tayna fumbled the stopper out of the bottle and tipped the wizard's head up. She clamped one hand under his chin and dripped the potion between his slack lips. Most of it ran into his close-cropped beard and down his collar.

"Drink it, damn you," she growled. "You will _not_ die on me. It's too far to the nearest temple, and bedamned if I'm dragging your lifeless corpse all over the countryside."

She tilted the bottle again and felt his throat move as he swallowed.

"Better. Now, more of it." Her fingers slid against his temple, the skin there icy. "Come on."

Another mouthful, and another, and her fingers found his neck and the slow, erratic thump of his pulse. "Jaheira?"

"I know," Jaheira responded brusquely. Her hands flared with her next spell, her eyes narrow and intent.

"Jaheira, his heartbeat's slowing down!"

"I _know_. Keep pouring those potions into him."

She yanked another one open. "Jaheira, I don't…"

"Listen to me. I am staring _into_ his ribcage right now. If you want me to save him, I need you to be quiet and let me do it."

Tayna swallowed the urge to growl a retort. Instead, she forced the neck of the bottle between the wizard's teeth, tipped half the contents in, and closed one hand over his mouth and the other over his nose. His eyelids fluttered as he half-coughed, half-choked, and somehow he kept it down. She stayed silent through another round of spells, the magic flaring until Jaheira leaned back, her face sweat-streaked.

"Alright?"

"For now," Jaheira said warningly. "Go and get some rest. I'll watch him."

* * *

Tayna emerged through the tent flaps into late morning sunlight, slanting through the trees. She yawned and stretched, and swore when she realised she had slept awkwardly enough to leave an ache in the centre of her back. She flopped onto the ground beside the remains of the last night's fire. Groggily, she glanced across the clearing and nodded to Minsc where he stood on watch.

She sat for long, silent moments before she heard halting footsteps behind.

"You are awake earlier than I expected," Edwin said, his voice rough and rasping.

"So are you." She twisted around. "How do you feel?"

"As if an ogre thought I was an oyster. And tried to open me up in the correct manner."

"Sorry. Stupid question."

He sat awkwardly, his gaze on the fire-pit. She took the time to scrutinize him, noticing how absurdly simply he was dressed, breeches and boots and a loose red shirt. His hands were bare of rings, and unsteady. His face was sallow, and his hair seemed very dark where the heavy strands fringed the hollows beneath his cheekbones.

"I remember," Edwin said, his breathing hitching.

"Yes?"

"I remember throwing a spell at one of those things. Creatures." His mouth flexed disapprovingly. "And then I turned, and there was another one behind me. And then I remember lying on the ground wondering why my robes were so heavy. And I remember you."

"Me?"

"You, attempting to drown me with healing potions."

Without thinking, she said, very quietly, "I thought you were going to die."

"I think I nearly did. (Not that death would stop a wizard of my calibre, of course.)"

"You're an idiot."

Edwin opened his mouth, his eyes flashing angrily.

"And no," she added. "You don't get to say something about how incredibly good you are at anything right now, since the colour of your skin right now suggests that you left far too much Red Wizard blood on the ground back there."

"I don't," he managed.

"No, you don't. I had the dubious honour of seeing the _inside_ of your chest yesterday. That's not an experience that I particularly want to repeat." She stared at her own boots. "I can feel you seething from here."

"Can you."

"What did you make of those creatures? Before you got torn apart, I mean."

"Formed of shadow, tough, but vulnerable to weapons. Truly alive? I am uncertain. But they are not the true problem here. They are a symptom."

She nodded. "Summoned, you think?"

"Perhaps. Or woken."

"Hungry?"

"Me or them?"

"You, idiot."

Edwin scowled. "Of course I'm not hungry. (Absurd question, even for her.)"

"Well, you get to say yes to me now, or you get to say yes to Jaheira later. Your choice, wizard."

"I will consider it."

"Gods. I'm talking about breakfast, not drawing up a plan of attack on a dragon's lair." She turned, letting herself study him. He was holding himself carefully, coiled, that tense way that she knew meant it still hurt. "We'll take it slowly today."

The stubborn set of his jaw did not shift. "There is no need."

"Alright," she said mildly. "Then we shall uncover exactly what is afoot in these hills all the swifter."

"You still sound like a badly-written tale."

* * *

Tayna darted into the guildhouse the back way, through the courtyards and past the stables. The days on the road had left her worn out and exhausted, and for too many days since, she found herself falling into bed not long after sundown. She had forgotten it, she realised, the slow simmer of endurance, the careful pace needed to cross league after league and still be ready to unsheathe her sword and move on regardless.

She had forgotten it, she supposed, in the months under the stone, locked in the cage or strapped to the table while Irenicus busied himself with his work.

_His work. Her. Herself. _

She crossed through the storerooms, ducked past the kitchen and kept going until she was loping up the last set of stairs. As she expected, she discovered Edwin in the small library, seated close to the fire. A book was spread across his lap and his gaze was pinned on the pages, rapt.

"I'm reading," he muttered without raising his head.

"Obviously." She dug a square of parchment out of the pouch at her waist. "Want to guess what our next job is?"

"You, singing for copper. While having to write your own ballads."

"That would be dreadful, since my singing voice is only marginally better than yours." Before he could retort, she added, "The Cowled Wizards are after a man marked for arrest."

"Branching out, are we?"

"We aren't. I am."

His head shot up. "What?"

"Look," she said. "I got cornered by one of the bastards themselves. Tall man calling himself Tolgerias. Handed me a commission along with some not very subtle warnings about making sure I do the job right."

Edwin slapped the book closed. "And your plan is?"

She hauled herself into the windowseat, sitting with her arms around her knees. "Edwin, look. This has the Cowled Wizards all over it. You really want another run-in with them? And Rayic Gethras doesn't really count, since I did all the dirty work there, right down to tipping his blood-soaked corpse off the side of the docks."

"I am perfectly well equipped and capable of taking on the entirety of their organization should the need arise."

"Right. So how about if I said, come along, but no spells, since I know the particulars of your arrangement with them? Or lack of arrangement, really."

His eyes narrowed speculatively. "That would be rather as if I stole your sword, and then pointed you in the direction of a contingent of heavily armed orcs."

"Not quite as bad, since I can throw a punch far better than you can."

He stood, his mouth thinning. "So?"

She stared up at him suspiciously. "You're backing down without a fight?"

"I did not say that."

"I won't be gone long. Look after the guildhouse for me?"

"And why have I been appointed to this task?"

"Because I know you. You're ruthless, and you'll take it as a chance to prove that you can up my earnings for a few days. Which," she said, and grinned. "If you manage to actually do, you can have your pick of the wine cellar."

Edwin's dark eyes gleamed. "Very well."

"Then we're agreed?"

"We are. And since I will no doubt exceed your pitiful attempts at whipping these thieves into some semblance of shape, it would be beneficial to the outcome of our deal if you return alive."

"Would it now," she said, deliberately bland. "Well, I'll try to make sure I do. Just for you."

* * *

Long days later she returned, the sharp scent of the sea assailing her as she wove her way through the twisting alleys. Beside her, Yoshimo and Jaheira were as wrung through, Minsc and Anomen trailing.

"I'm sorry," Yoshimo said, grinning. "What agreement was that?"

She threw a tired grin over her shoulder at him. "Essentially, I bet him he couldn't rake in a few more coins from my thieves, and he always jumps at a chance to prove anyone wrong."

Yoshimo laughed. "Really?"

"That's Edwin. That man would slice off his own head just to prove he could magic it back onto his shoulders afterwards." She frowned. "Well, if he could. You know what I mean."

Inside, she took the time to shuck off her cape and leave it trailing over the back of a chair in her room. She tugged off her gloves and left them haphazard on the table before she ambled her way through to the small library. When she shouldered the door open and found the wizard in the same chair, she spluttered into a laugh.

"Have you _moved_ since I left?"

"Of course I have," he retorted without looking up from the tome that was balanced across his knees.

She paused in front of the crackling fire, holding her hands out until the cold eased away. Her gaze skipped from the fire to the table and she realised she was looking at several bottles of wine, coated with dust and dark. "And what are those?"

"My reward."

"Gods, you sound so smug. I talked to the boys downstairs and the difference was ten gold, Edwin. _Ten_."

"We agreed on a difference, not a specified amount of difference."

"Pedantic wizard." She smiled. "Alright. But you're sharing that one."

"Which one?"

"This one," she said, and grabbed the nearest bottle.

She wrestled the bottle open and poured for both of them, passing one of the cups across before she sat at the hearth, cross-legged, the welcome warmth sinking into her.

"So," she said, and lifted her cup. "You want to hear all about the adventure we had?"

"I suspect I have no choice in the matter," he said flatly.

"You're right. You don't. But if you're even a bit nicer to me, I might tell you all about the planar sphere we ended up in."

Edwin glared over the rim of his cup. "With that, I might – _planar sphere?_"

She laughed. "Yes. The man Tolgerias wanted, Valygar Corthala, his ancestor landed one right in the slums here. And only Valygar's blood could open the door."

"Ancestor."

"Mmm. Some creepy spellcaster type," she said. "Still breathing since he'd been leeching his way through his descendents."

Edwin angled one eyebrow up. "And the contract you drew up with the Cowled Wizard?"

"Well, I thought about handing Valygar over. But it was far more fun to trick the bastard instead. So, we got the gold he promised from his corpse, and Valygar got what he wanted from his ancestor." She frowned. "Well. More like what he needed."

"You did not think about handing your mark over at all."

"I thought about it a bit."

"You are transparent as glass sometimes."

She clicked her teeth shut. "Alright, you've made your point."

"Good."

"Anyway," she said pointedly, cutting across him. "I'm hoping once word of what happened to Tolgerias starts dripping its way through the city, the Cowled Wizards might back away from us a bit."

"That or forcibly confront us."

"Yes, that too." She sipped at the wine. "And if they do, you can have the opportunity to show off just how good you are at taking on their entire organization."

"Happily." For long moments he regarded her, his gaze sharp and searching. "Why?"

Tayna shrugged, whatever irreverent words she wanted drying up. "Why not?"


	3. Chapter 3

_As always, little belongs to me, and reviews are always welcome.  
_

_**Part Three – Reflections**_

The moon rose over Trademeet, half-veiled by skeins of cloud. Behind the inn, the courtyard was almost deserted, cold as the night ran on, and heavy with the scent of woodsmoke. Lanternlight danced at the windows, throwing dappled spots of gold onto the stone floor outside.

Tayna sat perched on the wall, knees drawn up and her sheathed sword propped alongside. "Is it wrong that I'm actually rather curious as to how it all worked?"

"The skindancers?" Sitting beside her, Edwin shook his head. "I could say yes, but then I would not be being entirely honest."

"You ever come across anything like that?"

"Not in person."

"Not even in Thay?"

"If this is some sly attempt to ridicule my homeland, take your peasant opinions elsewhere."

She shrugged. "Skindancers, crazy druids and djinni. And I thought Trademeet was meant to be boring and full of merchants."

"I suspect something changed the very instant you set a prophesied foot upon the grass here."

"Shut up, wizard."

"For all you know, I'm being serious."

She grinned. "You're not."

"You can read me that well, can you?"

She did not lift her gaze from the light blazing at the windows. "Like an open book. One written in very small, simple, one-syllable words."

"You are infuriating."

"You're free to hit the liberty of the open road any time the fancy takes you."

She heard him shifting, his robes rustling, and she suspected he was folding his arms.

"Without my magic to defend you, you would find yourself skewered by something monstrous within half a day."

She dissolved into laughter. "Of course I would." She reached for her tankard, standing beside the ale jug she had wheedled from the innkeeper on her way outside. "I was wondering if I could ask you something."

"Since you very rarely bother to draw breath before plunging into whatever absurd speech you're about to make, let it be known that I agree, with a certain sense of looming dread."

"Funny man." She stared down at the tankard, her smile fading. "Why do you think Irenicus chose me?"

"Why do _you_ think he chose you?"

"I don't know. I've run it through my mind a thousand times. I don't know. Chance. Opportunity."

"While I do not know the whole of it, I would hazard that he did not capture you to learn more about your sparkling personality. More likely he wished to uncover some truth about Bhaalspawn."

"Fine, but what truth? I just," she said, and shook her head. "You remember how I said it was as if he was trying to cut something out of me?"

The wizard nodded. "Yes. Potential."

"But what in the hells does that mean?"

"Some power he was hoping to unlock, perhaps. Some skill. Something buried."

"For me or for him?" She grimaced. "Don't answer that one."

"You had killed Sarevok," Edwin said, musingly. "Your name was one that traveled the lands. (Those ballads. Terrible, and she _liked_ them.)"

"You're not making me feel any better, here."

"That is not something you asked me to do."

"No." She gulped at the ale and winced after struggling through too big a mouthful. "Imoen's bait, isn't she?"

"No, I am certain it is a mere coincidence that Irenicus insisted and indeed ascertained that she be gathered into imprisonment as well."

"Very funny. What do you know about Spellhold?"

"(Am I to be nothing more than treated as an oracle tonight?) It is under the provenance of the Cowled Wizards. I have read of many a mage who crossed that threshold. I cannot say that I have read of many who have crossed their way back out."

"Reassuring. Thanks. So much."

"You asked," Edwin said.

"Yes. Yes, I did."

"Why?"

"Because I'm driving myself mad with these questions, so I thought I'd try them on you."

"Lovely," he said haughtily.

"And because I knew you'd actually give me an answer, you idiot."

"That," he said, and she heard his uneven intake of breath. "Of course. (Why would I not?) Never let it be said that Edwin Odesseiron lacks for an answer."

She reached for the ale jug. "Or twelve, on some days."

* * *

"This is a bad idea, you know."

"Stand aside and do not bother me with your inane ramblings."

"It's a really bad idea, Edwin."

"And how would you reach this idiotic conclusion?"

"Because I heard you say the words _power_, _powerful_, _might_, _glorious_, and _future_, often in conjunction with each other." When he ignored her, Tayna folded her arms. "And we did just pry this scroll out of the desiccated hands of a lich. You really want that kind of spell doing something to you?"

"Yes, yes," the wizard muttered absently. "All the world will tremble beneath the power of Edwin Odesseiron and his Nether Scroll."

"Alright, alright. Let's just get somewhere a bit safer before we have a look at that damn thing, yes?"

The wizard scowled. "And what makes you think you will cast your barbarian eyes upon it?"

Tayna sighed. "Edwin. I am covered in dust. Some of it is real dust and some of it is lich dust. I need a bath. Right now I don't care if you never let another person cast their eyes upon that damn scroll. I want to get out of here."

His eyes narrowed. "Very well."

Out in the sunlight, the graveyard was deserted, the air brisk and chill. Tayna squinted up at the cloudless blue bowl of the sky, aware of the wizard's distracted presence somewhere behind her. She heard the crackle of parchment and said, "If you fall over something because you can't pry yourself away from that thing, I'm not waiting for you."

"No respect for the deepest mysteries," he muttered.

"No," she said archly. "None at all."

He glared over the edge of the scroll at her before he gave in, folding it delicately inside his pack.

"Come on. Let's pretend for once that neither of us is carrying anything dangerous, unstable or just plain lethal."

"Then perhaps I should choose company other than a Child of Bhaal," he retorted.

"Fair point, wizard."

They meandered their way back through the city, almost indolently taking the long way through the market. Tayna let her gaze wander across the vivid clamour of the silk merchants' stalls, the hanging bolts of fabric there capturing the sunlight. Further along, she stopped to dawdle over a cloth arrayed with sparkling lines of gems, threaded through with finely linked silver. She turned away, half-smiling, and found Edwin regarding her curiously.

"What?" she demanded.

"You _like_ this city," he said, and it sounded like an accusation.

"Sometimes," she admitted. She quickened her pace, widening her strides to match his. "Besides, have you ever had the occasion to take yourself up to where all the rich bastards live here? Quick fingers and quicker feet and you can come away all the wealthier rather fast."

"Until those quick feet take you straight into a guard who actually takes his position seriously."

"Well, excuse me, but here I was thinking you currently work for the same people I do."

At the guildhouse, the wizard vanished into the library midway through muttering dire imprecations about being left alone under pain of dismemberment. Tayna shrugged, closed the door and ambled up to her rooms.

There, she called one of the girls to help her fill the bath until the air turned hazy with the heat. Finally left blessedly alone, she peeled her clothes off, left them scattered haphazardly, and sank into the water. She worked the soap into the loose, sodden fall of her hair and ducked her head under afterwards. She idled until the water cooled before she dragged herself out.

Dinner came and went and the wizard did not emerge. The next morning brought runners from Renal Bloodscalp and errands, until the last of the daylight saw her in the courtyard, swapping blade strokes with Yoshimo.

She lunged for him, the movement turning into a pirouette that spun her too wide. Briskly, she recovered her footing and hurled herself forward again. His sword cracked along hers, hard and sharp. She turned with the momentum, her shoulder ploughing into his and driving him back a stumbling pace. As fast, she scythed her sword up until the tip rested against his collar.

"Well fought," Yoshimo said, breathing unevenly. "Very well fought, my friend."

"I'm sure the shoulder shove isn't really a fair move."

"Not at all, but a very useful one," he said, smiling.

She sheathed her sword. "True enough. Same again tomorrow?"

"Indeed, if only to reclaim some vestige of the glory lost to you this day."

Tayna snorted. "Right. Hey, you haven't happened upon Edwin today, have you?"

Yoshimo shook his head. "No, I haven't experienced that particular pleasure yet today."

She laughed. "Thanks, Yoshimo."

"Always."

Inside, she stopped long enough to find a bottle of wine – dark, rich, and closest to the cellar door – before making her way up the stairs to the library. She pushed the door open and said, "Edwin? Are you alive?"

He was sitting at the table, she realised, parchment spread in front of him and his hands flat. Candlelight touched the edges of the scroll, the inked words there jagged and dark.

"Have you moved in the past two days?"

"Mmm," he said, and did not lift his head.

"This is strange behaviour even for you, you know."

He raised his head, his eyes wild and wide. "I _have_ it. (Words, useless words, and she insists on using them even now.)"

"What? A bad mood, a good idea, a plan for a decent poem?"

"As if you would know a decent poem if you were surrounded by a hundred bards." He gestured at the scroll. "The Nether Scroll, and how I might unlock its power."

"You just said _might_."

"Will. Shall."

"Alright," she said carefully. "How is this going to work, exactly? I mean, should you be reading from this thing in the open air somewhere so that nothing gets destroyed, burned down or blown apart, you included?"

Edwin shot her a withering glare. "Your faith in my abilities stuns me, as ever."

"Well, forgive me for worrying about what reading from an ancient magical artifact might do to you," she muttered.

"Yes, yes." His gaze dipped to the scroll again, flickering as he read silently. "Yes, there it is."

"Oh, gods." She unstoppered the wine bottle. "I'm going to stand over here. Tell me when you're done, alright?"

Briefly, he looked up at her, his eyes wide and almost lightless in the shifting gloom. When he spoke again, the air trembled, seeming almost to stretch, glass-thin and impatient. Watching, Tayna felt it, the whining surge of the magic, of whatever it was he was calling up from the scroll. Between heartbeats, the shadows shivered and the wizard _changed_.

For a long, uncertain moment, Tayna could not quite work out what she was looking at.

"Well," Tayna said eventually. "I have to say that I really didn't see that coming."

At the table, the wizard was rigid, silent, hands splayed beside the scroll.

"So," Tayna said, and fought back the sudden awful urge to laugh. "How exactly are we going to get you out of this one?"

"I don't know."

"That'd be a first from you," she said, before she could think better of it. "Sorry." She approached the table and reached for the wine bottle. "Alright. So you've managed to turn yourself into a woman."

"_I _didn't," the wizard snapped, her voice rough, lighter, altered. "The scroll."

"There has to be a way to change you back, right?"

"I don't know."

"Alright." She drank, the wine warming and rich. "There has to be. We'll work it out. We'll work something out."

"What?"

"I don't know yet." Tayna swallowed another mouthful and studied the wizard's new shape. Dark eyes and soot-thick lashes and nearly black hair and the fall of the red robes hugging all the wrong places and she was aware that she was staring. "How do you feel?"

"Feel? How do you think I feel? I've got," the wizard said, and gestured. "And I'm _missing_ – never mind."

"Details. Thanks." She stared for another long moment before dragging her gaze away. "You know what's annoying?"

"Everything."

"You're prettier than me."

The wizard grabbed the wine bottle. "Wonderful," she growled. "You could not have possibly kept that delightful observation to yourself?"

* * *

The wind whipping off the docks was clipped and brisk, heavy with the tang of salt. Swathed against the chill, Tayna ducked outside, a bottle and two glasses tucked under one sleeve. She crossed the courtyard, squinting into the gloom until she saw the wizard, hunched against the far wall, cowl pulled up.

"Just me," she said, when the wizard's shoulders tensed.

"Go bother someone else."

"You've been out here every night for days now."

"And what should I be doing? Well?"

Tayna ignored the vicious undertone in her voice. "I was wondering if you were alright."

"Alright?" she demanded. "Why would I be alright? Can your ignorant eyes not _see_ the accursed shape I am trapped in?"

"Alright. Stupid question." She placed the wine bottle on the wall and followed with two cups. "Want to share?"

The wizard said nothing.

Tayna filled both glasses and laid one beside the wizard's hand. "Every spell has a reversal, doesn't it?"

"What if this does not? What if I am trapped this way for eternity? Damned this way until death?"

Tayna sighed. She forcibly wrapped the wizard's fingers around the glass. "Just drink the wine."

"I have a name."

"Sorry, Edwin." She leaned on her elbows. "And I am sorry, about this. It must be – ah, hells. I could say something about how difficult it is, but I don't understand how it feels. I can't. But I am sorry. You had any other thoughts on your, ah, condition?"

"No." The word was blunt, spat out, as furious as the look in the wizard's eyes.

"What about that Red Wizard friend of yours we ran into?"

"Degardan? Hardly a friend."

"Colleague. Former acquaintance. Whatever. You know he wasn't entirely fooled, right?"

The wizard shrugged, the motion of it frustratingly elegant.

Tayna shoved back the angry urge to snarl something unhelpful at her. "Could you find him?"

"The point being?"

"The point being he might know something, since I'm assuming you don't want to go frolicking in to ask the Cowled Wizards about this."

"No. I do not."

"So we find Degardan, ask him nicely, and see if he knows anything."

"And if he does not?" she grated out.

"Well," Tayna said, and shot a grin at her. "You look like you could use something to kill right now."

* * *

Three days of asking the right questions – even occasionally to the right people – and a handful of well-placed bribes handed Tayna the Red Wizard's trail. Circling too close to the docks for her liking, she thought, and demanding more than a few questions from thieves and smugglers she had trade agreements with. On the fourth day, she waited under the damp stone arch of one of the bridges, sword drawn and her shoulders tense.

"You are not alone," Degardan said, and she spun.

"I'm not as stupid as I look."

"He is with you, I take it?"

"Well, _he_ isn't, if you take my meaning," she answered blandly.

The Red Wizard's eyes narrowed. "A disguise," he said eventually.

"In a manner of speaking."

"Tell me where he is."

Tayna shrugged. "What's he done that's so interesting that it brought you halfway across the world just to tell him so?"

"Betrayal, disobedience, noncompliance."

"Lovely," she said mildly. "Such actions are frowned upon, I take it?"

Degardan lifted one hand, some spell sparking around his curled fingers. "Tell me where he is so I can bring this charade to a close."

Deliberately flat, she said, "Edwin? Want to show this bastard what you look like right now?"

She heard the wizard muttering something before she stepped out into the soft wash of the sunlight.

Degardan laughed, and the spell flared around his hand. Tayna was moving as he cast, closing the distance. The spell cut the air and hit the wizard, wrapping around her in a tangle of bright energy. Tayna blinked, halfway to blinded. She squinted as the spell cleared, and fierce relief ran through her.

"Cured," Edwin said, halfway to marveling, his voice deeper, clipped and his own. "Cured of my wretched condition. Degardan, I owe you my health, wealth and well-being. Now however, it is time to return the favour. Now it is time for you to die."

Tayna moved, pushing off on one foot, about to snarl at him to stop talking and start using his damn voice to cast instead.

Before she closed the distance, fire rippled from Edwin's spread fingers, white-edged and searing. The rushing roar of the flames sent Degardan sprawling, and when he tried to stagger upright, another spell tipped him over. A third crackled across him, cold and pinioning until the icy pluming breath between his lips stilled.

"Edwin," Tayna said, sharply, aware that the wizard's hands were still livid with magic. "Edwin. He's dead. I'm fairly sure he can't feel it anymore."

"No. No, of course not." The wizard exhaled, looked down at himself, and frowned.

"There can't possibly be anything wrong now, can there?"

"Save perhaps for my clothes."

"Your fault for being a woman for the past gods know however many days. And your fault for insisting on dressing like that. I _told_ you you could wear breeches if you wanted to." She sheathed her sword and looked up at him, his tall, slim frame familiar and strangely odd at the same time. "I think I prefer you with stubble."

"This is not _stubble,_" he grated.

"Whatever you say," she said, and grinned up at him.

"Infuriating wretch."

"So are you." She nudged him. "Come on. Let's get you back to the guildhouse and looking a bit more respectable."

* * *

Hours later, she sat on the small table in the library, her legs hanging over the edge and her gaze on the twining fire. When the door opened behind her, she turned and laughed.

"You're still wearing a dress, Edwin."

"These are robes."

"Same difference."

The look he gave her could have curdled milk. He stalked past her, the gold-edged hem of his robes whispering over the floor. He laid a bottle of wine on the table beside her, the chiming sound of two cups following.

"And you're even bearing gifts," she said archly. "Though it's a little less impressive when it's my wine cellar."

He mumbled something inaudible into the folds of his collar before pouring for both of them. His hair was damp, she realised, dark and gleaming where the heavy strands fringed his cheekbones.

"Been scrubbing off the last of your womanhood? Everything all accounted for? Everything, ah, in place?"

His eyebrows knotted. "Very well. Get it over with. Each and every inane, prodding question you no doubt wish to use to interrogate me. And after that, we shall speak of it no more. (And anyone who does dare broach this subject will find themselves slaughtered, painfully.)"

She hid her smile behind the rim of the cup. "Not having a great relationship with the rest of the Red Wizards, then?"

Haughtily, he snapped, "And do you truly think or believe that the Red Wizards generally treat each other with the guileless stupidities of virtue and open-heartedness, or would you prefer the truth of it?"

"And what is the truth of it?"

"When we entrap each other, it is not through any pointless effort of kindness."

"Well, I'm certainly starting to understand why you're the way you are."

"_Starting_ to?" he repeated, and she could have sworn he sounded vaguely affronted.

"If nothing else, he got you to stop moping."

"I did not," he said.

"You did. Frequently, and at great length. You're lucky I'm patient."

"_You_ laughed."

"It was funny. Still is."

"No. It is not."

"Oh, I don't know," she said, smiling. "You should've seen your face when it happened. I've never seen you that shocked."

Edwin opened his mouth, closed it, and eventually said, "No. I suppose not."

"Told you it was a bad idea."

"Yes," he said sourly. "Are you finished? (Ridiculous assumption. She's never finished.)"

"Now that I know you're actually safe? Not a chance."

His eyes narrowed, dark and scrutinising as if he was sifting through her words. "Well," he said.

"Well what?"

Surprising her, he shrugged. "I don't know."

"What did he mean? Degardan, I mean?"

Edwin leaned against the table, his gaze suddenly indistinct. "I have been gone from Thay a long time, now."

"And you've never wanted to go back?" She shook her head. "Sorry. That was intrusive. Don't answer if you don't want to."

"Perhaps I should have returned. Before you killed Sarevok, before," he said, and stopped.

"And miss out on my inestimable company?"

"When I left Thay," he said, his fingers closing around the wine cup. His voice was pitched low, uncertain, as if he was hunting for the right words. "It seems as if it was so long ago."

"Do you miss it?"

"(Foolish question, even for her.) Of course I do. In Thay, I was at least accorded the proper obeisance in reflection of my position."

"Let me guess," Tayna said. "You miss the food and the slaves as well?"

"Well," he said, and one side of his mouth shifted. "Some of the thieves who scurry within the walls of the guildhouse respond with an alacrity that is almost acceptable. As to the food, I fear too many months in your company has likely forever confused my palate."

"Right," she answered, sardonic.

He shifted, lifting one hand before letting it lie against the table. "What you did," he said slowly. "Today, and before today, I - well."

"You lost the power of speech along with your transformation back to an inferior form?" she asked, gently teasing. When he scowled, Tayna said, "Edwin, it's fine. And you're welcome."

He smelled of soap, she noticed, soap and clean skin and now the heady scent of the wine.

"Come on," she said, and nudged him. "I still have a lot of gold to raise."

"And?"

"And I thought we'd pay Lord Firkraag a visit and see what the catch is."

* * *

The great red dragon was dead, the whole hulking sprawl of it curled across the stone floor of the cavern. Sweat-streaked, Tayna unlatched her hand from her sword hilt and silently hoped she might stop shaking some time soon. She was aware of the others as they bustled around, checking weapons and armour and wounds. She took a step forward, unsteady, her knees close to buckling.

"The skin, Tayna, were you listening?"

She blinked through stinging sweat. "What?"

Edwin sighed at her. "This is a magnificent specimen, girl, one we are unlikely to stumble upon again any time soon. We should harvest it."

"Edwin. This dragon is the gods know how many feet long. We are not harvesting all of it."

"_Parts_ of it."

"Edwin. I love your enthusiasm right now," she said slowly. "But I just got thrown into the wall twice. My back is one huge bruise. I don't want to know about what's dripping from my leg. You want to harvest the dragon, go ahead. Knock yourself out."

"Spell components," he said, almost desperately. "Weapons. Proof."

"You must be entirely overcome. You've stopped using complete sentences."

He scowled. "Surely even _you_ can see the use of taking something of value from this creature."

"Yes. Yes, fine. Once I've sat down. Once I can think straight." She scraped sticky hair out of her eyes. "It's alright for you, you were leagues away from it."

"As I recall, no one _asked_ you to run at its jaws."

"Not the point, wizard."

A smile threatened to spoil the rigid line of his mouth. "Is there one?"

"The point is that this is a damn big dragon. And it smells like one."

After she mopped the clinging dark blood from her sword, she motioned the others out of the high empty cavern and further up, to where the floor was mostly clean, and where they could barricade the far doors long enough to rest. Briskly, Jaheira busied herself laying a small, carefully tended fire, while Yoshimo tried to tempt Anomen into cards.

She sank onto the ground and winced. Carefully, she unbuckled her sword belt and laid it and the sheathed blade beside her. She glanced across to where the wizard was poring over _something_ he had found on – or possibly in – the dead dragon. For long, appalled moments she watched before shaking her head to herself and looking away.

"You're a terrible excuse for a human being, Edwin."

"I am going about the business of the arcane, foolish girl."

"Of course you are. Clean yourself up before you come anywhere near me, alright?"

She sat with her back against the stone, her thoughts blurring towards sleep. Something brushed her arm and she flinched, her eyes snapping open. "What?"

Edwin regarded her through level dark eyes. "It's close to halfway through the night."

"What? How?"

"The usual way, I hazard. The sun sets, the moon rises, and the stars wheel overhead."

"Hilarious." She pushed her knuckles against her eyes. "Why did I think it was a good idea to sit here so long? No, don't answer that." She shifted, and gasped when pain shot through her side, sharp and throbbing. She reached for the edge of her tunic, yanked it up, and swore. "Ah, hells."

"Dare I ask?"

"Waterskin?"

He opened his mouth, looked at her, closed his mouth, and reached for the waterskin, propped up against her pack.

"No," Edwin said, when she tried to haul her tunic off. "The fabric is stuck. Wait."

She complied, leaning back so that he could dampen the fabric. Carefully, he eased the hem of her tunic up, and she saw him frown.

"What?" she asked.

"When did this happen?"

"Before Firkraag knocked me over with his tail and after I ran away from a giant wall of fiery dragon breath. I think. It was rather hectic."

"Foolish girl. You should have said something."

"I was tired."

"This is close to being infected." He pressed his fingertips just above the long slice of the wound. "Your skin's too hot."

"Clean it and find me a healing potion. It'll be fine."

"As you command," he muttered venomously.

But his hands were deft and gentle as he found a clean square of cloth, dampened it and wiped the crusted blood away.

"Tell me you cleaned yourself up after you went elbow-deep in that damn dragon."

He shot her a pointed look, turning his blood-slicked hands palm-up. "This mess belongs to you."

"Lovely," she said, the word turning into a gasp when he shifted her tunic up again.

"Give me your dagger," he said briskly.

"What? Why?"

"Your shirt is fastened over the wound. If I pull it, the wound will open."

"Mmm," she said, too aware of the biting heat of the pain. "Swordbelt."

He reached past her, unhooking the narrow blade. He turned it until the wicked edge caught the flamelight. Apparently satisfied, he cut the fabric away, each dip of the blade followed by the damp pressure of the cloth.

"You're surprisingly good at that," Tayna muttered.

He grumbled something, the words muffled against the side of his cowl.

"I know I'm going to regret asking, but what did you just say?"

"You should have said something about this. Long before."

"Edwin, me bleeding all over the place is a regular occurrence."

Sharply, he said, "It was foolish."

"Yes, alright. The last word is yours. Happy now?"

* * *

Night closed over the docks, bringing squalls of rain from rippling black clouds. Tayna tipped her head back until the salt spray touched her eyelids, until she could taste it when she breathed in. Idly, she opened her eyes again and let herself count the ships at the wharves, some of them strung with lanterns, others floating silent and lightless.

"You are _handed_ a guildhouse, and yet you hide out here. (Insufferable and insane in equal measure.)"

"Evening, Edwin."

He sniffed, and she heard the drag of his robes before he paused beside her.

"To what do I owe the honour of your presence this dark and gloomy night?"

She could feel him glaring at the side of her head before he said, "Your thieves. The ones foolish enough to attempt to swindle us."

"Us?" she responded archly. "And yes, I remember. We sliced their pay by more than half."

"Yes."

"Go on," she said, and turned, looking up into the shadowed angles of his face. "You'd better be drawing this out for a reason."

"Of the four of them, one of them is dead. Killed by his colleagues."

"Shame," she remarked drily. "They get the right one?"

"Does it matter? The gold they handed over today covers their recent dearth of support for the guildhouse."

She nodded. "Good. Keep an eye on them, though. They try shaving the top off my earnings again, and we tell them they'll find themselves being made into the kind of example that includes the use of sharp instruments."

"You are learning," the wizard said.

"No, I'm desperate. I'm funneling as much coin through this place as fast as I can manage just so Renal keeps nodding and smiling." She twisted her head back so she could see him properly. "Do you want to sit? Or at least lean? You're too tall."

He did, mumbling something to himself about the impossibility of being too tall regardless of company.

"I like it out here," she said, softly, surprising herself.

"Why?"

"It's quiet."

"Not when you let your tongue run away with itself, it isn't."

She snorted. "You know what I mean."

"Because it is quiet," he said, as if the words were shockingly unfamiliar. "And what else?"

"Because I can sit out here and no one bothers me." She shot him a grin. "Almost no one. And because sometimes it's better than being inside."

For long moments the wizard stayed taciturn, his gaze turned towards the hem of his robes. She could almost hear him thinking, turning her words over, and hid a slight smile.

"How long have we been here?"

"This is the moment where you confess that you cannot count even the days," the wizard muttered. "A long time. Months."

"A long time," she echoed. The words came oddly easy, simply framed and slipping beneath the whipping wind. "I don't know what I thought, those first days out of – out of wherever it was he kept us."

"And since then, you have succeeded in nearly getting killed by orcs, goblins, two dragons on entirely separate occasions, the gods know how many ghouls and yuan-ti, beholders, trolls and that rather furious slime thing you slipped on."

"Nearly. The key word is nearly. And you don't need to recite the contents of your current favourite bestiary at me."

"Well," he said musingly. "I can perhaps acknowledge that the way you dealt with the troll in de'Arnise Keep was acceptable."

"Tor'Gal? I hamstrung him from behind and broke his neck."

"Yes, I remember."

"I'm flattered," she said mildly. "And it's not just me who goes charging around at monsters."

"No, not at all. The fool boy, for instance, became a knight in order to give some sort of celebratory framing to a similar model of behaviour."

She threw him a sidelong glance. "Be nice. He worked for it."

"Yes, he did. Worked himself up over every single imagined slight, from his superiors to his family."

She flicked the side of his arm. "You were there. You saw his father. Vicious sober and worse in his cups."

"Yes, alright." His mouth flexed disapprovingly. "I don't suppose he has a crusade to charge blindly into? Some quest that might take him somewhere else? Chult, perhaps. Or Raurin."

"You don't like anybody, do you?"

"No," he said pointedly.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at the heaving waves. "He's useful."

"Ah," Edwin said, his tone lightening.

"Don't sound like that. I need help to get Imoen back, I've never said or behaved otherwise."

"And the boy is useful when his mouth is shut and his sword is sharpened."

She shook her head. "I don't know, Edwin. I feel like ever since I stepped out of that damn dungeon, I don't know quite how the world works. I'm not turning someone away who's willing to stand with me and get me to Imoen."

The wind over the waves turned brisk, plucking at her cape and the loose fall of her hair. She raked her fingers through the strands, yanking them back into some semblance of order. She noticed him watching her and demanded, "What?"

"The paths life hands us are strange," he said mildly. "Yours, taking you to Baldur's Gate and finally here."

"Gods, that was so long ago. Or at least it feels that way. You know what's stupid?" Before he could draw breath to answer, she added, "Thinking it was all done when Sarevok fell over."

"No such simple destiny for a Child of Bhaal?"

She frowned. "Not that I'd've said it like that, but yes, I guess. You knew, didn't you? Almost before I did."

"Unfortunately even my intellect does not encompass the subtleties of true foresight. I did not know _what_ troubled you. But it was easy enough to see that _something_ did."

Bluntly, she asked, "How?"

"You killed a man in front of me," Edwin said musingly. "Pulled his head back, cut his throat, and something about his death - his blood - affected you. The issue could not have been him - he was useless, human, nothing of interest. And once I thought on it, I realised I had seen this about you many times. You would kill, and kill quickly, efficiently, and then _something_ would change. Bandits, gibberlings, wyverns. Their shapes had little in common and neither did their deaths."

"So it had to be me," Tayna said. "Alright. But you weren't surprised. When I told you, I mean."

"The blood of a dead god living in your veins? Walking the steps of a prophecy? There is little time for surprise when such fascinating subjects are present."

She grimaced. "Subjects. Thanks. A lot. Really."

His eyes glinted, sly and dark. "Does it feel the same?"

"Killing?" She thew him a grin, bleak and edged. "I think I do it faster now. Why weren't you surprised?"

"I _was_ surprised, in some manner. A young girl from Candlekeep, blundering through the wilderness and somehow still alive? That in itself was surprising. (Young and foolish and never once thinking properly, not even with the right sort of advice.)"

"But you stayed," she said, fumbling the words because the memories were welling up, the scent of the road and the scent of death and the hundred and one thoughts she had tried to shove aside. The stables, where she had killed first, clumsy and awkward, the knife point digging in and catching on bone and it had been messy. Afterwards, when she and Imoen had fled, and days later when she had killed again, the blood and the blooming death that had been something that dug hooks in her and sent her mind reeling.

"Supremely bad luck, I'm certain," Edwin muttered, and she jerked herself out of her thoughts.

"Like I keep saying," Tayna said, and summoned a grin. "You know where the door is. Don't hesitate to walk through it whenever the mood strikes you."

"And if I did?"

"Laugh at me and I'll hit you."

"You can try."

She glared at him. "Which of us carries a sword around?"

"Which of us can conjure a wall of fire faster than a heartbeat?"

"You can't cast that quickly." She blinked. "And that's not the point at all, wizard. The point is, I guess, that if you did suddenly bugger off, I suspect I might actually miss you."

Edwin arched his eyebrows at her. "Shocking."

"I said _suspect_."

"Yes, I noticed." A small smile threatened at the corners of his mouth. "Then I suppose I should endeavour to stay."


	4. Chapter 4

_As always, thank you to everyone who's following this story. Reviews are always welcome.  
_

_**Part Four – The Cost**_

The lanternlight fluttered over the curls of parchment and Tayna squinted at the jagged lettering there. The room was darkening already, she noticed, the crisp wind through the casement catching the corners of the parchment. She leaned back, sighed, and made herself read over the last sheaf again.

Shipments doubling in the docks after dark, and her smugglers were making quick and short work of it, moving swift and silent-footed before the sun rose.

She folded up the parchment, dropped the whole lot into the fire, and eyed the last of the day's takings, wrapped in cloth and sitting beside the lantern. Briskly, she scooped it all up and left it in the strongbox, teasing the lock closed with nimble fingers.

Downstairs, she discovered the wizard in the small library, perched in a chair near the fire and head bent over a book.

"I'm busy," Edwin muttered without raising his head.

"Doing what?"

"Exploring the mysteries of the arcane."

"Going over your spellbook, you mean?"

His eyes flicked up, dark and flat. "Very amusing."

"Was this room always a library?"

"Since I knew of it, yes. (Still here. She's _still_ here, damnable creature.)" He let the book rest across his lap. "Don't you have someone else to bother?"

She ignored him and ambled over to the table instead. She found the decanter and raised it invitingly.

"Oh, very well," Edwin muttered.

"Long suffering wizard."

"In your company? Most particularly."

When he stood, the book still clasped in one hand, Tayna stifled a smile and passed him one of the glasses.

"When we finally set out for Brynnlaw, I'm going to miss this."

"What?" Edwin asked. "Consorting with thieves and murderers on a veritably daily basis?"

"Hypocrite. And no, I meant raiding Mae'Var's wine stores."

"I may have to agree with you."

She lifted the glass and sipped, the wine flooding dark and heady across her tongue. He joined her at the table, leaving the book beside the decanter. For long moments she stared at the fire, twining under the mantelpiece. When Edwin shifted beside her, reaching for the decanter, she jumped.

"Sorry," she said ruefully. "Not enough sleep and too many things to do."

"Delegate more."

"I should." She touched the edge of the book. "May I?"

His eyes narrowed a fraction. "You may."

Idly, Tayna flipped the book open, the pages sliding crisply against her fingers. She flicked her way through further, her gaze finding odd, curling shapes wrought in the ink, rippling across the parchment.

"Beautiful," she said. "What does this one mean?"

Edwin caught the edge of the page. Gently, he traced the symbols there, long fingers following the interlocking coils. "Fire," he said quietly.

"Sometimes I think I should've read more about magic and spellcraft."

"Why didn't you?"

"I preferred stories with dragons getting their heads lopped off by some plucky adventurer. Imoen always had that aptitude, not me." She watched as he mapped the shape of something else, something that seemed part sword and part flame. "And then, well. Once I found out what I was, I was stupid, and thought I didn't want to know anything – anything arcane, I suppose. Stubborn and stupid."

She glanced up at him, expecting to see him smirking, or else regarding her with _that_ expression, half sardonic and half resigned. Instead, she found him simply looking back at her, searchingly.

"I have to ask why," Edwin said.

"Why I ran away from it all?" She shrugged. "Nothing was right and nothing was real. There was this _thing_ in me. I thought that maybe I could push it from my mind."

"Foolish," he said, but the edge was absent from his voice.

"I was young." She frowned. "Well, I'm still young. Why do you like it? Spellcraft, I mean. And don't just say because of untold riches and even more untold power."

"But that is most of its attraction," he answered drily. "It has always been important to me. I have always been aware of it, and my talent for it. In Thay, we are taught from a very young age."

"You enjoyed it?"

"The learning? Some of it," he said guardedly. "It is no simple thing, to survive the lessons we demand of spellcasters."

"Then I should be pleased you survived long enough to run into me?"

Edwin hesitated. "Yes. You should."

Smiling, she let her gaze flick back to the book. "That one?"

"I am not going to label, discuss and elucidate each and every symbol, spell and incantation in that book for you, you ignorant peasant. (Should have told her to leave as soon as she entered. Yes.)"

She pouted at him. "But that one's pretty."

Edwin sighed. He clasped the back of her hand and guided her over the edges of the symbol, glossy black lines blurring into each other. "Cold. And this one, underneath, a warding, for protection."

She felt the weight of his hand over hers and found herself staring at his fingers, long and lean. "Yes," she said, because she thought she needed to say something. "So which one do you have to remember to call up a load of fireballs?"

* * *

The kitchens were warm, the air hazy and full of the scent of roasted meat and the spiced wine set out in wide-brimmed cups along the table. Tayna paused long enough to heap a plate before carrying its teetering, steaming contents to the table. As gracelessly, she sat, half listening to the others as they talked, the low, tired chatter of a long day winding to a weary close.

"They'll be back," Jaheira said, and sighed. "Slavers only run to ground long enough to regroup."

"I know," Tayna said. "But damn it if it didn't feel good today."

Jaheira smiled, the motion of it lightening her face. "Yes, you certainly seemed to enjoy shouting at them."

She grinned and reached for her wine cup. "It was less the shouting and more the slicing that followed."

Jaheira rolled her eyes. "Justice dispensed, is that it?"

"Something like that. And I didn't hear you complaining at the time."

"No," Jaheira said, her gaze sharpening. "I did not."

"Sorry," she said, shrugging. "Made me angry. Walking in there and those poor bastards are in chains."

"No," Jaheira said again. She reached across the table, her fingers catching against the back of Tayna's wrist. "I understand. I do."

Jarringly, she thought of it, how she had woken and caught at cold bars, how she had flinched at _his_ shadow passing between them. How sometimes the door had opened, and she had clung to the bars, the metal biting into her skin, because if she did not, he dragged her out all the faster.

"Alright?" Jaheira asked.

"Yes," she answered, raggedly. "Yes. Fine."

She grabbed at the cup again and drank, letting the sound of the others and the crackling fire and footsteps overhead drown the insistent needling of her thoughts. She heard Yoshimo say something to Minsc about swordplay, and the big ranger responded genially. Anomen asked about Rashemen, and training regimes, and when Minsc launched into his reply, Tayna buried her smile against the rim of the cup.

Later it was quieter, and she discovered that she had no particular inclination to leave. Instead, she pushed her plate away and reached for an extra chunk of bread. Eventually she straightened on the bench and winced when something pulled in her leg. "Oh, that's not very good."

"What, too much charging around like some wood-brained barbarian?" Edwin grinned, shark-like, over his emptied plate. "Strained a delicate little muscle?"

"Why don't you come down to the courtyard tomorrow and I'll show you."

"Oh, alas. I am far more cerebral than your common adventurer."

"Cerebral? Because you know how to read?"

"I know how to shape the energies of the arcane and bend it to my will. Obviously you can't even manage the same with your own muscles."

She saw the evil glitter in his eyes and smirked back at him. "And what would you know about muscles, wizard? Your kind tend not to have any."

"And how would you know, hmm? Have you explored this avenue of inquiry at all?"

"No, I haven't. Maybe I should, the next time I'm in Thay."

"Perhaps, though I doubt your primitive ways and peasant look would get you across the border."

She laughed. "I'm glad I amuse you."

"Oh, you do. Why else did you think I decided to lend my wondrous talents to the aid of you and your disparate group of wandering idiots?"

"Oh, I thought you might have a streak of hidden – _very_ well hidden – kindness in there somewhere." She was still smiling, unfettered, aware of how little sting there was in her own voice and probably even less in his.

On her other side, Anomen shifted, frowning. He opened his mouth, but Yoshimo shook his head. "Don't bother, friend," Yoshimo said cheerily. "Most people prefer to say what they _mean_, but these two have their own particular way of talking."

Tayna opened her mouth to respond, but before she could speak, footsteps clattered at the door and she found herself looking at one of her thieves, young and coltish beneath a mop of brown hair.

Briefly she struggled for his name. "Brennyn, right?"

"Yes, miss. Mistress." He nodded, his face rain-streaked. "Sorry to disturb you."

"No, it's fine. What do you need?"

"Message for you, Mistress. From Renal Bloodscalp."

* * *

She was sprawled in the windowseat, her feet up against the opposite wall and a book on her stomach. She stared at the pages again, promptly forgot whatever it was that she just read, and tried again, squinting. She heard the door open, and then footsteps before Edwin said, "Ah. So you can read, after all."

"Good evening to you, too," she responded without looking up. "And yes, before you ask, yes my coinpurse feels a damn sight lighter. And yes, I'm still wondering if I've done enough to get Linvail to point me at a ship."

"I have heard of him. If half of what I have heard is close to accurate, he certainly has the money, and the connections, as he is slowly proving."

She snapped the book closed. "Just not the wretched sense of impatience I have right now."

"Oh, I would not say that," the wizard said thoughtfully. "Did you see his face, when he heard that we had turned the vampire guild into nothing more useful than the contents of last night's hearth?"

She snorted. "Yes, I did. And did _you_ see Mistress Bodhi's face, just before she slithered off into the shadows?"

"I did," Edwin said. "She certainly had eyes for you, Child of Bhaal."

"Eyes, claws and those annoyingly pointed teeth." She sighed. "Be hearing from that one again, don't you think?"

"I would be more surprised if we did not."

"You know, not everyone's like you. Not everyone likes cultivating powerful opponents as a hobby."

"And yet you seem to even without trying," he said blandly. "Or is it the opposite, gone stupendously wrong?"

"Very funny."

He glared pointedly at her feet until she gave in, curling her legs closer and sitting with them crossed beneath her. He sat, imperiously arranging the crimson fall of his robes.

"So," Tayna said. "You can't sleep either. Tell me, is it because you're actually nervous like I am, or because you forgot to get round to your spells until now, or because you're hatching some awful plan that I don't want to know about?"

"Awful plan? What exactly are you babbling about this time?"

"Nether Scroll, wizard. Don't really need another go around at something like that."

He opened his mouth, closed it again, and gave a small movement that she supposed was meant to be a shrug. "No," he said. "I suppose not."

"I want to think it's going to be easy."

"Why would it be?"

She frowned. "You know, you could just agree with me." When he stayed silent, she sighed. "Fine. You're right. Happy?"

"I know you killed Sarevok," Edwin said. "I saw you kill Sarevok. Irenicus – this is different."

"Is it? It could just be another fight."

"I do not for an instant believe that even you are that willfully ignorant."

"Damn you."

Something in his gaze sharpened, dark and searching. "You do not need me to tell you what you need to do. In that, you have changed. (Power. Always power, and always locked in the blood.)"

She scowled. "What?"

"Tell me. How did it feel for you, in the days before you stepped under the city to find Sarevok?"

"Like I wanted to throw up. Except on those days when I did actually throw up." She scrubbed a hand across the back of her neck.

"And now?"

"Now I'm swinging wildly between wanting to get there as fast as possible so I can carve something insulting into his skin, and wondering whether I'll be able to keep myself standing upright the first time he looks at me." She peered across at him and found him still regarding her, slyly speculative. "And that's me changing, is it?"

"Well. It is you moving towards some form of strength."

"Wonderful. You going to be disappointed if I say that I'm still actually scared witless when I think about it?"

His eyebrows met. "Am I supposed to say something equally witless about finding one's courage?"

"Well. Not if you don't want to."

"I don't."

Tayna spluttered into a sudden laugh. "Right. Then I guess I'll just have to make do with your other sparkling gems of support."

"If Irenicus is as powerful a mage as you suspect, you will need to deal with him fast."

"Yes, I know," she said, but the wizard shook his head.

"Listen to me." His voice was sharp, cutting across hers. "You will need to get yourself close to him as fast as you are able. This is not Sarevok. This is not some fight you can win by simply jumping higher and faster than some lumbering oaf with a big sword."

"Hey," she said, protesting. "That fight damn well nearly killed me."

"And this one will if you are not thinking clearly."

"I had bruises bigger than my own head for weeks after. Not to mention cracked ribs and the amount of blood I left scattered all pretty-like across the floor." She exhaled, the breath leaving her lungs in a shaking rush. She was aware of how he was coiled and troublingly silent. "I'm listening."

"Then keep listening. Listen to _him_. Listen to what he is saying, what he is casting, where he is standing. This web is _his_, and he cannot have stepped inside Spellhold without knowing some other angle, some other awareness. This is his path, and you must walk it until you change it and make it yours."

She fought to find words and failed. "Well," she said, the inside of her mouth sandy. "I don't think I've ever heard you talk like _that_ before."

The wizard sighed. "And I have heard you talk like that so many times now that I would be genuinely shocked if you think you are fooling anyone by hiding behind your own words. (Transparent, this one, as always.)"

"Yes, thank you." She swiveled around on the windowseat so that she could look at him properly. "Think we'll do it?"

"I do not know."

She nodded slowly. The bare, blunt truth in his words floated between them, desperate. "You know, I think that might be the most shrewd assumption you've made lately."

* * *

Spellhold smelled of stone, she thought, stone and dead air and the layers of the years buried beneath her feet. Inside and through the heavy doors and she could still taste the sea, the salt tang of it, clinging to her lips and the wind-ruffled fall of her braid. She had followed the robed man with the frost-brittle voice, aware that _something_ was wrong, something in the unmoving air and the way the others behind her were equally wordless. She had followed and listened, her feet dragging as if she was walking through water, the pull of it surging and slowing and trapping.

There had been a cage, afterwards, and the blade-sharp awareness that he was Irenicus, and always had been, and whatever she had thought to do, she had failed.

There had been darkness, under her and around her and inside her, and she had fallen into it.

"Tayna," Jaheira said, her voice rough with fatigue. "Slow down, child."

"I'm fine," she snapped.

"We don't know what he did to you, yet. You need to rest."

"I need to kill him." She wrapped her hand around her sword hilt, clinging hard to stop the wretched trembling in her fingers. "Before he leaves. I need to find him. Him and Yoshimo."

"He doesn't care about Yoshimo," Jaheira said carefully.

"_I_ do."

She stalked past Jaheira, aware of the anger as it seethed under her skin. Aware of the others as they watched her, uncertain. Aware of Imoen, her friend - _her sister, her sister in blood and past and heritage_ - leaning into Minsc's solid shoulder. Aware that something was different, in her skin and in her blood.

Aware that something had changed.

She drew her sword, the blade jumping, catching the shaking lanternlight. Four more prowled steps took her to the door and through, into the high echoing chamber with its glass cages and motionless air.

When her gaze found Yoshimo first, standing coiled and patient, she was almost surprised.

"Still here?" she snarled.

"Still here," Yoshimo answered, his face a blank, flat mask.

Edwin's hands shifted, fire rippling between them.

"No," she said, touching his arm. "He's mine."

"Very well," Edwin said, dark eyes fierce. "Take more than an instant longer than you need, and I'll turn him into charcoal."

"Deal," she hissed.

Yoshimo stood poised, his sword clasped lightly in one hand.

"Don't suppose you want to tell me why you've done this?" she asked.

"There is no answer I could give that you would accept."

"So you're just a treacherous, lying bastard, then?"

"Better that you think so, my friend."

"Oh, I do." She circled him, slowly, watching as he turned, his gaze dark and locked on her. "Heard the way you talked to that Cowled Wizard, the poor bastard who'd had his mind all torn up. Heard it and – gods. Made me wonder."

"And still you said nothing."

"I was preoccupied." She forced her shoulders down, willing away the marrow-deep tension there. She knew how he fought, fast and deceptively loose-limbed, each indolent swing of his blade veiling coiled grace. "Tell me why."

"Death," Yoshimo said, the word grating. "_Death_. No matter where I would go. No matter how long. No matter when. Death, for me."

"A spell?"

"A geas, locked into my bones and my blood and _this_ is the only way out of it."

Tayna nodded, her gaze never leaving the point of his sword. "I might've been able to scrounge up about an inch of sympathy if you hadn't spent the last few months pretending to be our friend."

"If I had not, you would not have let me close," Yoshimo responded. "However you pretend otherwise, you do not engage in contracts, Tayna. You have companions. Those of us who stay. Those of us you hear. Those of us you protect."

"Maybe that's a flaw I need to reconsider," she said blandly, and threw herself at him.

She was tired, and clumsy, and moving raggedly by the time her sword cracked hard against his. The impact shook her footing, and she staggered. He melted away from her, the tip of his sword flicking across her shoulders, splitting skin and drawing blood in tiny, frustrating lines. She spun, closing the distance between them and pushing on again. She could feel it, the insidious burn of the anger, buried.

Two hammering strokes sent Yoshimo back a pace. The third she fumbled, her sword snagging against his hilt and catching. He wrenched away, and the impetus tugged her too far, her feet sliding. Desperately she fought to regain her stance. The flat of his sword smacked hard against the small of her back and she stumbled. Furious, she whirled upright and snarled, "_Stop_ playing."

Something in his face shifted, hardened. He launched himself at her, his blade clanging hard and punishing against hers. She locked both hands around the hilt and held on, too aware of the strain in her muscles. He twisted, one knee lifting. She spun in response, blocking, turning into him and letting his momentum yank them both around. As fast, she rammed her elbow under his ribs. Yoshimo lurched away, his sword darting up and meeting hers when she followed.

He was breathing too rapidly, she noticed, erratic and shallow and she wondered what he had seen. What he had heard, here, while Irenicus called white light into the glass cages, while Irenicus spoke.

Yoshimo moved, light-footed, dancing away from her. Eyes narrowed, Tayna waited, her gaze latched on him until he shifted his weight forward. She hurled herself at him again, her sword catching against his and sliding. Still moving, she slammed her shoulder hard against his. Yoshimo swayed - _slightly, very slightly, his stance buckling an inch_ - and heartbeats later she was on him. Viciously, she flipped her sword around and drove the pommel against the side of his neck. He gasped something out, something shaken that was only half words. She let her weight send him staggering, his sword arm dropping wide. Close to frantic, she flicked her sword up until the blade was buried under his chin.

Behind her, the others were talking, she was almost certain. Saying her name, perhaps, or asking if she was alright. She tugged her sword out of the ruin of Yoshimo's throat and watched as he crumpled. The rich, bright scent of his blood filled her mouth and nose and steadily she breathed it in.

She was halfway to kneeling when someone caught her arm.

"Tayna," Jaheira said, very gently. "He's dead. It's done."

"Yes," she said numbly. The anger was still there, hot under her skin and relentless. She wanted to drive her sword into him again, and again, until she might cut out any memory of who she thought he had been.

The pressure of Jaheira's hand tightened. "Come on."

Tayna complied, flicking the blood from her sword. She slid it back into its battered scabbard and loosened her locked grip on the hilt. She looked past Jaheira's shoulder and discovered the others watching her.

"I should have seen it," she muttered.

"Yes," Edwin said coldly. "You should."

She reined in the flare of her temper and said, "If all you want to do right now is tear me down, take it somewhere else. As far away as you like. Thay, for example."

Edwin's eyes glittered. "You should have seen it, and so should I."

"Why didn't you?"

"Preoccupation," he said, and absurdly, she smiled.

"Oh? What kind?"

"Running your guildhouse, defeating your enemies, counting your gold. Among other accomplishments. (She should know. She was there.)"

"You're really not quite getting what _giving compliments_ is meant to mean," she said absently. "_Why_ in the hells didn't I see through him?"

"Did you not, truly?"

"This is really not the time to throw cryptic questions at me, wizard."

"Think on it. Did you see it, explain it away to yourself, and bury it?"

"Perhaps," she admitted. "I had a lot on my mind. Still do."

"Hey," Imoen said, softly, as if she was still getting used to the sound of her own voice. "Hey. You feel alright?"

"Define alright," she answered, mustering up a smile. "I'll be alright."

"You're a really odd colour right now," Imoen said. "Like when we stole all that cider and drank it really fast so Gorion wouldn't find out. You threw it all back up. Remember?"

Tayna laughed breathlessly. "Yes."

Imoen caught the back of her wrist, squeezing hard. "You'll be alright?"

For a strange, wrenching moment, she stared down at Imoen's hand, thin and scarred. She wanted to push her away. She wanted to turn her hands palm-up so she could see Yoshimo's blood on them.

"Yes," Tayna said. She blinked through a sudden swell of dizziness. "Of course."

* * *

She was hollow.

She tried to find the centre of herself. She tried to find the place where her soul was. She tried to find herself.

She could feel the weight of Spellhold above her, bricks and flaking mortar and the sharp tang of the salt air. The whispering echoes that slid through the empty rooms. The ghosts that still clung to the emptiness there, the emptiness the Cowled Wizards had left, the emptiness Irenicus had carved there.

The memories assailed her and fiercely, frantically, she tried to make sense of them. Moments ago, days ago, whenever it had been that she had stepped into Spellhold and painfully she was no longer sure. His words – _Irenicus, _him, always him, blue eyes and glacial biting voice – had cracked through her head.

_No fight. No more words. Only sleep. _

She had woken clumsy and groggy and confused, and pressed her hands against curved shining glass. Shadows had moved, slipping across the glass, and she had dragged herself back madly.

Days ago, she thought. Two days ago. A day.

A day.

A day to cut her soul out of her.

A day to wake the _thing_ that lived inside her, the thing that belonged to Bhaal.

"Tayna? Tayna?"

"Gods above. Has she - is she herself?"

"Tayna?"

Voices, swarming at her, buzzing, sounds she should have known. Somehow she clawed her way upright, and heard someone snap out a warning to be careful. Her feet jarred against the floor but she only walked faster, pushing on, away, anywhere. Between breaths, she understood that she was bleeding. She could smell it, the coppery warmth of long wounds on both shoulders, from one forearm. Somewhere above her hip she was aware of deep, stinging pain. Between breaths, she understood that her shape was her own again, skin and bone and the emptiness that the ritual had left inside her.

Someone else said her name, and something else, the words rolling and rich.

"No," she said, and shoved away.

"Hold yourself together," Edwin snapped. As viciously, he said, "Is it only you in there right now?"

She swallowed. Her tongue slid against the back of her teeth, dry and painful. "Just me."

He clamped his hands over her shoulders, holding her in place. "It will be alright."

"How?" she hissed.

She twisted, shaking, but he held her.

"I'm not letting you go," he said. "Gods help me, I am not letting you go until you look at me."

She wrenched against him, and he locked his grip tighter on her shoulders. "Get off me!"

"No." One word, no bluster; the wizard shook his head. "And let you do what? Go charging after Irenicus? We don't even know where he went."

"Then I will find him and I will hunt him down and I will tear my soul from his body."

"Do that later, and I will help you," Edwin said fiercely. "But right now, at this moment, I need you to breathe."

She had barely the time to think up a venomous response before the tears burned her eyes. "I hate you, Edwin," she snarled. "I really do."

"I'm sure. As long as you concentrate that impressive temper on Irenicus, I expect we could probably fit what's left of him into a very small box by the time you're done with him."

She yanked away from him, and this time he let her. Jarringly, Tayna slumped against the wall, hiding her eyes, hands lifting to cover her face. She could still smell it on herself, the thing that had been buried under her skin, the creature. It was under her fingernails and inside her mouth and she dug her fingers against her scalp, desperately pressing hard.

"Did I," she said, and swallowed against the constriction in her throat. "I mean, I don't…"

"You are making even less sense than usual," Edwin muttered.

She opened sticky eyelids. She made herself look across to him, look across the dusty stone floor to where he sat as bonelessly as she did, hunched over and breathing hard. Blood showed dark through his robes in wide patches on his chest and suddenly she knew _she_ had done it.

_Claws hooking and catching and someone cried out. Hands coming up and flaring bright with magic and the spell sizzled against her and burst uselessly. Shouts from the others, the clamour of them rippling around her. She tried to pick apart the sounds, the voices, and failed. _

"Gods. Gods, Edwin. Look at you. Look at you. Look at me."

"Yes," he said, rasping the word out. "Though you are rather easier on the eyes now, compared with some moments ago."

"I didn't," she said, and blinked. "Gods. I'm sorry."

"Do not be. I threw enough spells at you to knock flat a charging dragon."

She choked on a sudden, aching laugh. "Good."

He made it to his feet unsteadily. Silently he reached for her, and she let him haul her upright. They staggered against each other, and somehow they swayed their way through the archway.

"I'll be up all night going over those spells, you realise."

"You'll just have to forgive me for that," she said, and gasped when she stumbled. "The others?"

"Are fine. Except, I imagine, for Yoshimo."

"Don't."

"It was not a criticism of the way you fought. Except perhaps to illuminate that clumsy swordplay appears barbaric at best and inelegant at worst."

Her knees nearly gave way, and she reached desperately for the wall. "Just _don't_."

Somehow she made it around the corner, her boots dragging. She could feel the others looking at her before she lifted her head, knowing the weight of it, the dreadful truth of it.

_This is what lives inside you. This is what is inside you. _

_This is what you are. _

"Come," Jaheira said, her voice carefully neutral. "You need to rest."

"I'm fine."

"You're not," Imoen said. She folded her arms. "Gods above. Tayna. I saw it. I was right there. You're not."

"And there's not much I can do about it right now." The instant the words fled her lips, she winced. "Gods. Sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Hey." Imoen caught her hands, her fingers latching hard. "It's alright. We'll talk it through, right?"

"Right." She shuddered, grappling with it, the marrow-deep awareness that she was not entirely herself. "What, ah. What was it?"

"An avatar of Bhaal," Edwin said. "A creature clothed in one of the shapes of its maker, and one that is imbued with its maker's essence. Violence, fear. Murder."

"Right," Tayna said. She glared sidelong at him. "Thanks. Lovely."

"The Slayer," the wizard added officiously. "I believe it stalked the realms during the Time of Troubles. Think of it – you could undertake some form of comparative study."

"Lecture me later," she muttered. "Or better yet, find me a book to read about it instead."

"Hey," Imoen said gently. "I think maybe we need to rest."

"I was meant to be rescuing _you_."

Imoen smiled, the movement of her mouth quick and vanishing too soon. "Let's just find somewhere."

* * *

She dreamed of the high walls of Candlekeep, and the crisp east wind, and the way the spring sunlight used to wake her, slanting in through the casement too early. Too quickly she woke, and her hands touched cold stone. She breathed in slowly and tasted Spellhold, all stone and dust and emptiness. She ached, both shoulders stiff and the skin scuffed raw on her fingers. For a long, terrible moment, she stared at her hands and wondered where the Slayer was, how deep it lay, where it sat beneath her skin and inside her blood.

She needed to move. She needed to gather herself to her feet and move, and somehow force herself to look at the others again.

Awkwardly, Tayna sat up. She was swathed in someone else's cape, she realised, and when she blinked at it, she discovered that the fabric was deepest red, edged gold at the hem. Briefly, she smiled, startling herself.

It took her two ungainly tries to shove herself up to her feet. She swayed through another unsteady step. She made it past the corner and found the others, huddled close to the twining flames of a tiny fire. Minsc on watch and Anomen standing to join him, Jaheira closer to the fire. Imoen sleeping, her head pillowed on crossed arms.

"There," Jaheira said softly, tipping her chin up.

Tayna nodded, and carefully made her way through the next archway, the red cape still wrapped around her and the edges trailing. The shadows were deeper here, slipping across the stone. She found the wizard sitting against one of the pillars, his cowl down around his neck and his gaze locked on nothing.

Very quietly, she said, "I think you lost this."

"Ah. Yes. No doubt you have dragged it through dust and blood and the gods know what else. You may as well keep your filthy hands on it until you have occasion to clean it and return it to me in the state in which I am accustomed to wearing it."

Tayna snorted. "I think my brain just broke. Are you being nice to me, wizard?"

He glared balefully at her. "Not at all."

"Your secret is safe with me."

"We are _stuck_ here, you foolish child. And," he said, cutting across her. "If we do not soon find a way out of this prison, this _thing_ in your blood will grow stronger. So we need you rested and thinking straight."

"We?"

"You know what I mean."

"Just checking," she said, and smirked at him.

"Stop this," Edwin said, his tone roughening.

"What?"

"You are hiding behind your words. You are hiding from what has been done to you."

"And how do you want me to sound?" she snarled. "What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you how it felt? How it still feels now?"

"So that you do not drive yourself out of your own mind with it?" He drew in a long, shuddering breath and snapped, "_Yes_. Tell me."

His words hit her like a punch to the throat. "Oh. Well."

"Take your time," he muttered, sardonic.

For long, terse moments, she stared down at her hands, locked over her knees. "I saw Candlekeep. It was all wrong. The ground was missing in places, and when I looked down, I could see stars. Stars against the sky. The sky in the ground." A painful, tearing laugh lodged in her throat. "And now you think I'm completely mad."

"No more than I did yesterday," the wizard said, softer.

"Bhaal was there. At least, I think he was there. Or I conjured him. I don't know. He spoke, and his voice – it was under my skin and in my blood and my gods, Edwin, I wanted to stay and listen. I knew what he would say before he said it. I could _feel_ it." She dragged her gaze from the floor and made herself look at him, nervous suddenly, certain she would see appalled fear in his face.

Or worse, she thought bitterly, interest.

Instead, she found him watching her, the listening tilt to his head intent.

"I fought him," she found herself saying. "I mean – I did, but it was more like a dance. That doesn't make any sense. But it was. We moved – he and I – it was as if we knew each other."

"How did you wake up out of it?"

"I don't know," she answered helplessly. "One moment I was there with Bhaal, then I opened my eyes and I was in that damn glass cage. And it felt – I felt…"

The brush of his hand against the back of her wrist startled her. "I am listening," Edwin said.

"Empty," she said, the word brittle on her tongue. "Like I look inwards to find my own thoughts and there's nothing there. It's barely been a day. And already…I don't know."

"Tell me about the Slayer."

"It was painful, I wasn't me, and I came back to myself in time to see that I'd hurt my friends. Happy?"

"No," Edwin said briskly. "And that's a charlatan's answer if ever I heard one. (Trick me with words? She should know better.)"

"I don't know how to talk about it. I don't know how to explain it."

"Try."

She wrestled with the vicious to shove him away, to stalk past him and away from his words and the infuriatingly thoughtful way he was looking at her.

"Loss," she said eventually. "Of control, of myself, of my shape. Something else stepping into me. And I don't know what'll happen when it happens again."

"When."

"Gods, I don't know, Edwin. I just – I nearly ripped you apart."

"Your talent for the dramatic is intact, I see."

"You so much as crack a smile at me right now, wizard, and I will kill you."

Deadpan, he said, "I would never dare such a thing."

"Edwin." She searched his face and saw how tired he was, shadows bruising his eyes. "Are you frightened?"

"Edwin Odesseiron? Frightened? I cannot comprehend such an absurd notion. (More than absurd. And she should know better than to ask.)"

"Now you're hiding," she muttered. "And I meant of me."

"While you may continue to tread the path of destiny across the realms, never forget, Tayna, that I have seen you hungover and before dawn on more than one occasion, sometimes both at the same time, and neither actuality is a pleasant or pretty one."

She scowled at him. "Very funny."

"But this thing, this ritual," he said, softer. "I am not certain that I am afraid of you. But what was done to you, and what is happening to you. Yes. Yes, it frightens me."

"I'm sorry."

"Not for me, you foolish child. For you."

"Oh." Ridiculously, her throat thickened. "And stop calling me that."

"Once you decide to start acting less like one, I might."

"Shut up, wizard." Her eyes were prickling again, stupidly, with weariness or the clawing awareness that they were still in Spellhold or both.

Before she could think better of it, she closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the side of his arm. She felt him shiver in response and then he was moving, wrapping his arm around her and drawing her against the crook of his shoulder. She laughed, muffled against his robes and the sound halfway to a sob.

"You tell anyone about this, Edwin," she muttered.

"I know," he said, and she could have sworn she heard him smiling. "You'll kill me. Or at least, you'll try."

For long moments she leaned into the sheltering press of his shoulder. Slowly she let herself become aware of him, of the soft, well-worn brush of his robes, of the measured rhythm of his breathing. She drifted close to sleep, sometimes slipping into it, the fog of her dreams exhausting. More than once she thought she heard someone's voice, the words clipped and rough and she tried to turn towards them. She woke eventually, her eyes gritty. Carefully, she shifted and found her cheek pressed against something soft and warm.

"Mmm," she mumbled, uselessly. "Edwin? That's you?"

"What if I said no, it isn't?" he responded waspishly.

"Funny." She burrowed deeper against him before she remembered that she was actually awake this time. "Is that alright?"

"I have survived some while of this. I'm sure I can survive a little more."

"Magnanimous."

"Always," he retorted, but the sting was gone from his voice.

"Did I sleep long?"

"No."

She eased away from him so that she could look at him. He was wrung through, she saw, his face sallow beneath dark hair and his eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion.

"Gods, Edwin. You look about as awful as I feel."

"It seems that I am not the only one who does not understand how to properly frame a compliment," he said, a smile ghosting across his mouth.

Hesitantly, she said, "Thank you."

"Dare I ask for what?"

"For this." She touched his arm, her fingers catching against the rich fabric of his robes.

His expression softened a fraction. "After the ritual, there was nothing I could – there was nothing I could say. Nothing with any worth. I had never seen you like that before."

"Never gone through a ritual like that before, either."

His gaze shifted away to some indistinct point past her. "It was as if everything had been taken from you, and to say that to you would have been worse than useless since it was true."

"I don't know," she said mildly. "We got Imoen back. And I just had the best nap of my whole time in Spellhold."

Edwin laughed, the sound of it short and terse. "Effusive praise."

"I meant it," she said, and prodded his side. "And not everything."

"What?"

"Not everything was taken from me."

"Tayna."

"No, it's alright." She looked at the stone floor, heavy with dust and the scent of unmoving air, musty and flat. How long, she wondered, since others had walked the halls of this place, this twisting labyrinth that Bodhi had sent them into? "You know, only you, Edwin, would take the chance to give everyone a lecture on just how horribly much you know about the avatars of dead gods."

"I cannot help it if I find myself in the company of uneducated barbarians with all the attendant knowledge of a simian troop on the loose."

"Mmm. If you ever refer to the Slayer as an opportunity for study again, I will have your head."

"How should I refer to it?"

"As that ravening, terrifying thing that tried to rearrange my spine and pretty much succeeded."

Utterly flat, he said, "So I take it you do not wish to avail yourself of the copious notes I have assembled upon this very topic?"

"You didn't?" She stared at him until she saw the sly gleam in his eyes. "You didn't, you bastard."

"No, I did not. (Though I should have, since such opportunities rarely come the way of scholars and mages alike.)"

She smiled, surprised at the simple ease of it. "Funny, the things that can happen in a day."

"What do you mean?"

"Well. Today I lost my soul, killed Yoshimo, and found out that Imoen is my sister. Big day."

"Even for one with the blood of a dead god in her veins."

"Be quiet, wizard."

He turned, his shoulder brushing hers. "And Irenicus?"

"I'm going to kill him," she said, quietly, fiercely. "I'm going to find him and I'm going to carve my soul out of him. And before that, I am going to find that vampire bitch of a sister he has and stake her to the damn floor."


	5. Chapter 5

_As always, a huge thank you to everyone who's following this story. Reviews are always welcome.  
_

_**Part Five – Blood**_

The noon glare of the sun hit Tayna's shoulders, warm and welcome. For long, exhausted moments she simply stood, staring at the glittering spread of the river, curling against sloping grey rocks. Beneath her boots she was aware of the soil, and the grass, and again she thought of the long weeks without them, without the light, without the open air.

Long weeks spent in the clinging, shifting blackness of the Underdark, where she had fought to understand the drow, where she had fought the gnawing empty ache inside her.

Long weeks while she had not been herself, while she had prickled beneath the uncomfortable awareness of Adalon's spell, while she had been shakily certain any of the drow would see through the burying layers of the illusion.

Long weeks until they had fled the echoing, moving shadows, the drow following and armed elves waiting in the ruined temple above.

Beside her, Imoen sighed. "Race you to the river?"

Tayna shook herself out of the mire of her thoughts. "Beat you to the river," she responded, and took off a heartbeat later.

They splashed into the shallows almost in unison, Imoen a hairsbreadth ahead when she vaulted over a gleaming wet rock. Laughing, Tayna skidded to a halt alongside her, the spray crisp and cool against her hands.

Awkwardly, Imoen kicked her boots off and threw them back to the bank. "I feel filthy."

"Even after all those warm baths in Ust Natha?"

"Only good thing about the place. That and all the wine." Imoen's breeches followed as she peeled them off, and she said, "Got time?"

"Sure. Just don't blame me if we freeze on our way back to camp."

"Very funny."

Tayna stripped down to her shirt and followed her sister, wading until the water was above her waist, cool and clinging and wonderful. Past the rocks, the river curved and pooled, the tug of the current pulling them both further.

"You know," Imoen said, and sank until she was neck-deep. "Thought you were going to punch Elhan in the teeth."

"I should have. Close-mouthed bastard."

"You thinking about whatever it is they know about Irenicus that they're not telling us?"

Tayna sighed. She tipped her head back so that the water caught at her hair. "I'm trying not to."

Imoen shifted sideways, easing herself through the water until her shoulders were against the dripping grey rocks. "So when we get back to Athkatla, you can show me this guildhouse that Edwin swears blind he's been running."

Tayna laughed. "He would say that. But yes, he's been helping. Though I suppose now it's Renal's guildhouse again."

"Sounds like you got a lot done."

There was a wistful, quieter note in Imoen's voice, and Tayna understood. "I'm sorry, Im. Not sure if I said it before properly. But I am."

"Well," Imoen said, and smiled brightly, too brightly. "You could add to that by telling me about the dragons you fought."

"It wasn't just me," she protested.

"No, but Edwin said you were the only one who thought running at a dragon's mouth swinging your sword wildly was a decent tactical choice."

"I almost heard that in his voice. Thanks." She cupped her hands in the water and let it run through her fingers, sparkling. "You want to talk about Spellhold?"

"About that part where I was stuck there for months, or that part when you changed into the Slayer?"

"Let's start with the first one."

"Honestly? I don't know. For weeks it was fine." Imoen shrugged. "Alright, maybe not fine. They left me alone, for the most part. I was bored out of my skull, and scared, but nothing – well, not much happened."

"When did it change?"

"He did something. Still don't know what." Imoen flicked dripping hair out of her face. "I heard it, so many spells at once. People running. The Cowled Wizards, I guess. Poor bastards wouldn't have known what had just hit them."

"He killed them?"

"Most of them."

Tayna swallowed. "And then?"

"And then he started practicing that ritual of his. Over and over again, until I was ready for Bodhi." Beside her, Imoen was very still, her gaze indistinct, pinned on the rippling river. "After that – hells, Tayna. I don't know anymore. I don't know how long it took. The days – I stopped being able to count the days."

Softly, Tayna said, "It's not alright, I know that. But I'm here and I'm listening."

"Yes. Yes, thanks." Imoen caught her hand, her fingers cold and slippery. "I'm sorry about Yoshimo."

"So was I." She clung to Imoen's hand and added, "Can't believe I didn't see it, any of it. He was so – I wanted to believe it was just dumb luck. That he'd walked into us and we'd walked into him and it would work out best for all of us if we stuck together."

She remembered it, how she had opened his throat and watched him fall. How even the heady scent of his blood had not stemmed the clawing anger. How the thing under her skin had pulled itself up and out of her until she was changed.

"Hey, you in there?"

Tayna flinched. "Sorry. Thinking too much."

"Bad idea. Never works out well. How did you end up at the guildhouse?"

"To begin with?" Tayna flicked the dripping ends of her hair over her shoulder. "It started with me running errands for Mae'Var. Tricky bastard had me do things like stealing jewelry from the Temple of Talos."

Imoen laughed. "Because that's such a sane and normal thing to want to do."

"It was not fun, I assure you. It involved me sneaking around in the middle of the night, getting rained on, almost waking half the temple guards, lifting this stupid necklace with a jewel the size of a rock on it, and then dropping the damn thing at least twice on the way out. And then Mae'Var, that bastard, decided to point out that I'd chipped it slightly."

Imoen's shoulders shook. "No," she said wryly. "Not fun at all."

Tayna straightened up slightly, and gasped when the air raced across her wet skin. "Cold enough?"

Imoen nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. "Cold enough. Run back to camp?"

"Only if we can stop long enough to get dressed. No one needs to see the alternative."

"No one, huh?"

Tayna dragged herself out of the water, shivering. She hauled her breeches on awkwardly and said, "That tone only ever means trouble."

"Me? Never. The opposite."

Tayna tried to ram her dripping feet into her boots, surrendered, and just slung them under her arm instead. "And just what are you trying to say, insinuate or hint at?"

Imoen grinned, raking one hand through the sodden mop of her hair. "Me? Nothing, sister mine. Nothing at all."

* * *

Tayna stared into the flat wall of the darkness. Somewhere overhead, she was aware of the rustling susurration of the trees. She wrapped her arms tighter around her knees and stared at nothing, her thoughts as blank as her eyes.

"You let the fire die down," Edwin said accusingly from somewhere behind.

"It's close enough to dawn."

He sat on the jutting rock ledge beside her, gathering his robes tighter around himself. "And it's brisk enough to give a frost salamander pause."

"Mmm."

"Tell me. What useless adventure are your thoughts fixed upon?"

Tayna blinked. "Right now? Nothing. So please leave me alone."

She heard the weight of silence in response. Finally, he said, "Look at me."

"You don't hear too well, do you, wizard?"

"We are days from Bodhi's lair. Days from getting your sister's soul back. And after that, your soul."

"Yes, I'm sure."

"You cannot let it cripple you now."

"_Cripple _me?" She heard her own voice sharpen viciously. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"You think I have not seen it? The way it buckles you, this loss? Every day, you have fought it. Into the Underdark. With Elhan, afterwards. And now you sit like this."

"Like _what?_"

"Like this. Like you have given it all up."

"No. I haven't."

"Your voice is empty."

"No. It isn't."

Edwin moved before she heard him, catching her arm and dragging her around so that she faced him.

"Your eyes are empty," he said, very quietly.

She wanted to yank herself away from him. She wanted to snarl at him that he was not wanted, that she wanted nothing and no one near her and the hollow ache inside her.

The absence in her.

Instead, she blurted, "I don't know what to do."

"When the sun comes up, you will stand up, and you will go to the city, and we will kill the vampire. Simple, yes?"

A painful laugh caught in her throat. "I didn't think it would take this long. Enduring this – I don't know. I don't know if I can."

"Stop that," he said sharply. "That sounds beyond stupid, even for you. (And I should know. I'm around her enough.)"

"Excuse me?" she demanded.

"You _will_ endure. You will endure because you have to. You will endure because you dragged me across the sea to Spellhold. You will endure because I refuse to see the end of this before you have torn Irenicus into too many parts to label easily."

"Because I dragged you to Spellhold? Selfish bastard."

"Vicious harpy," he responded, his eyes glinting.

"Fine." She exhaled, the breath shuddering from her lungs. "And yes, I feel better. Not by much. But I do feel better."

"We are close, Tayna," Edwin said. "You will have your soul."

"Yes," she said, and could not quite resist grinning up at him. "I guess we are close. Especially right now, since I'm well on my way to not being able to feel my fingers."

As if scalded, he unclamped his hand from her arm. "That was _not_ what I meant."

"Sure it wasn't."

* * *

At the guildhouse, Tayna passed the boy at the door a palm-full of coin.

He nodded, smiling. "Bloodscalp sent word you might be back. Guildhouse's yours."

"Long as I pay for the privilege now, right?"

His smile widened. "Got to make a living somehow."

"I know what you mean. Have I missed much?"

He tipped his head to one side. "Going pretty strong, miss. Shook things up a bit, I reckon, when you chased that other guild out of the graveyard."

"Good to hear."

Inside, the kitchens were reassuringly warm, the windows dark with the last hours of the night. Tayna sat in front of a barely-touched plate and thought about the dawn, and the graveyard, and Bodhi.

Bodhi, waiting, and she would know, she would have to know that her prey had escaped Spellhold.

"Do you know," she said slowly, "I almost long for Sarevok to be back and walking around." She glanced at Anomen, saw his quizzical frown. "Sarevok was not exactly subtle."

"Not unless 'subtle' means 'owning all the grace and intelligence of a shambling mound considered by all other shambling mounds to be somewhat lacking in thinking capacity'," Edwin muttered.

Imoen leaned her elbows on the table. "And do you remember his brilliant plan for sneaking into Candlekeep?"

Tayna smirked. "That's etched into my memory. He pretended to be a monk. A six-foot-four, broad-as-an-ogre monk. And, to make it even better, he called himself Koveras."

"Koveras?" Anomen echoed.

"Yes. Really." Tayna sighed wistfully. "It almost makes me wish our mad mage would turn up somewhere calling himself whatever his name would be if you said it backwards." She winced and shook her head. "Or perhaps not. It's just so strange…there was nothing personal about what he wanted."

"Irenicus? He wanted your _soul_. It doesn't get much more personal than that, surely?" Anomen stifled a yawn.

"Yes, but what he wanted was the soul of a Child of Bhaal. That it was _my_ soul, or that Bodhi got Imoen's soul, feels almost irrelevant. He wanted what was inside us, not us ourselves." She eyed the plate again, not quite able to summon up interest. "There was no explanation, no handy ranting and raving wherein all his secret plans were revealed."

"Because by that point, we were no longer needed," Imoen said quietly. "They had what they wanted."

Tayna saw Imoen's expression darken as she glanced away. She leaned over, squeezed Imoen's hand lightly. "And we'll take what's ours right back from them. Am I right?"

Imoen smiled. "You're always right."

"Course I am."

"You'll be ready by noon?" Jaheira asked.

"Ready and willing. Well, maybe less willing than ready."

Jaheira smiled. "Try to get some rest, child."

Tayna nodded absently. She was vaguely aware of the others as they chattered, eventually stepping away from the table, taking themselves off to sleep before the sun rose.

"Hey," Imoen said, and she flinched. "You look like you're about to keel over."

"I'm fine."

"We got everything?"

"More stakes than you could ever want." She smiled slightly, and added, "And lots of holy water, courtesy of Elhan who of course knows _nothing_ about our enemies."

"Then I guess we've got everything." Imoen leaned her chin on crossed hands. "She'll have reinforced, you know that, right? Gone and found other vampires somewhere. Or just turned some new ones."

"Bodhi? I'd be more surprised if she hadn't."

"Hey." Imoen straightened up. "You want to come and rest?"

"Later."

"Tayna."

She mustered up a smile. "If I'm still here when you're getting ready to leave, just give me a kick."

"I'll hold you to that."

* * *

Even under the sweep of the sunlight, the graveyard felt _grey_ somehow, the chill locked in the earth and the stones and the long, echoing tunnels that twisted below. At the door to the catacombs, Tayna paused, her shoulders stiff. Slowly, she settled herself, settled the jangling uncertainty of her nerves.

"Alright," she muttered, half to herself. "Do your worst."

The passageway beyond was empty, footsteps tracking through the dust and the air dank. As slowly as she dared, she led the others deeper into the lair, her gaze searching the silence and the suspiciously blank floor for traps and tricks and whatever else Bodhi might have had the tenacity to leave for them.

Another archway reared up overhead, and briefly she recalled that this should give way to an open, candlelit chamber, the walls there white and swimming dizzyingly with trapped light. Four steps took her forward and through, and a heartbeat later, she heard footsteps.

Tayna whirled, her sword meeting empty air. "Anything? Anyone?"

"Behind us, I thought," Anomen responded.

"And now?"

"Nothing."

She steeled herself, aware of the ragged jump of her heartbeat. "Alright. Slowly. Let's go."

She crossed into the candlelight, looked up at the white blur of the walls, and turned in time to see one of Bodhi's vampires, melting out of the shadows ahead and moving startlingly fast. She yanked her sword up, the flat catching against the vampire's shoulder. She shouldered the vampire back, snapping the pommel against its neck. When it staggered, she grabbed for the stake at her belt and drove it clear through its chest.

When it collapsed into a choking swirl of dust, she straightened up, breathing hard.

"So we'll just," she said, and stopped. "Bodhi. Nice of you to join us."

Briskly, she scanned the room again. There were close to a dozen of them, she noted, vampires standing poised and coiled. Between Minsc and Anomen, she saw dust, thick on the floor and grey.

"I'm sorry," Imoen said, too fast. "She was going for me and I moved too quick."

"It's alright," Tayna said, and tightened her grip on her sword.

She looked past Imoen to Bodhi, to where the vampire had one arm locked around Edwin's neck, ruining his balance and dragging him close. Furiously, he clawed at her arm until she caught his wrists with her other hand and twisted. The wizard hissed, heaving himself away again.

"I'm sure he knows he can't cast," Bodhi said, and smiled. "Or that he shouldn't. Whichever he prefers."

Edwin opened his mouth, his eyes flashing angrily. Before he could speak, Tayna said, "And I'm sure you know that if you don't let him go, I'll have you on the floor and learning what it's like to be dust."

"Child of Bhaal," Bodhi said thoughtfully. "Brash and bold you have become indeed."

"Didn't you run the last time we met?"

"I observed," Bodhi said. She yanked the wizard's hands down again, her other hand urging his head back. She latched her fingers in the wizard's dark hair, and said, "But it seems that you survived."

"As if you're surprised. You would've heard about it the instant I left the Underdark."

"Before," she said, her mouth twisting into a smile. "You want him back, do you?"

"Well," Tayna said, deliberately bland. "He casts a decent fireball spell when he sets his mind to it."

"Oh, is that it?" Snake-fast, Bodhi moved again, and Edwin staggered.

"Take your hands off me," the wizard snarled. "Right now and right this instant unless you wish to learn exactly what kind of vengeance a Red Wizard can dream up. I have fought and defeated opponents with twice your skill and significantly better dress sense."

Tayna coughed, gauging the distance to the vampire. She slid forward two steps and said, "You do know he's just going to keep talking at you until you let him go, right?"

"Let him," Bodhi said.

"Right. I think they call this being stymied. Or stonewalled. Or an impasse, if you're feeling fancy."

"Oh, no," Bodhi said, and smiled again. "Find me."

A heartbeat later, Tayna was moving, her sword-point finding only emptiness. Frantic, she watched as the vampire glided away, the wizard's heels dragging and his hands catching and flailing. As desperately, she turned, aware of another vampire beside her, its claws slicing the air inches from her face.

It took too long, cutting through the vampires, toppling them and then the brutal downswing of the stakes to follow. As clinically, Tayna checked the coffins they found, one after the other until she was sure she could taste it, the scent of the vampires as they crumbled.

"Alright," she muttered. "That's some of them, at least."

"Hey," Imoen said, nudging her. "You're alright?"

"I'm fine. We need to keep moving."

"Before he talks her to death, you mean? Well. Proper death."

Tayna paused, laughing suddenly, absurdly. "You never know your luck. Come on."

Methodically, they worked through the rest of the rooms, the walls blazing with the candlelight and white marble baths filled with blood. The coppery stink of it made her shudder, and again she wondered how many people Bodhi's vampires had hauled down here, and how often, and who they might have been.

"Stupid," she growled.

"What is?" Jaheira asked.

"We chased them out of these damn catacombs once already. And how long til she was back here, her talons sunk into the city?" She shook her head. "Sorry."

"No," Jaheira said, softer. "No need."

The steps at the end of the corridor rose up, and Tayna remembered that they would lead into a narrow chamber, the walls bright with the rich fall of tapestries and the glow of hanging lanterns. Unceremoniously, she swung the door inwards, and froze. She saw Bodhi first, perched on the marble swathe of a bench, her eyes sparkling when she looked up. She saw the wizard next, his robes askew and his skin the colour of wet chalk.

"Let him go."

"Oh, I could," Bodhi said. "But I'm not at all sure he wants to."

She caught a handful of the wizard's hair, white fingers locking in dark strands, tilting his head back so Tayna could see the bleeding mess she had made of his throat.

Very quietly, Tayna said, "You hurt me, you die. You hurt my friends, you die painfully."

"Mmm, I'm sure," Bodhi said. Her teeth flashed in a smile. "Have you ever conjured the thought of it? Having to kill someone you know? Someone you call a friend?"

"I've already done it. Wasn't that interesting."

"You humans," she said, and shook her head. "Always lying to yourselves. Always poisoning yourselves with your own words."

"Then maybe we should just stop talking," Tayna said, and threw herself at the vampire.

Bodhi reacted viper-fast, shoving her away. Tayna hit the ground roughly, aware of the others as they moved behind her, Imoen calling up some spell, and Jaheira barking something at Minsc. She staggered upright, dragging her sword with her, and found herself staring at Edwin.

_No_, she thought. _Not him. _There was nothing there. Nothing behind the blank dark wall of his eyes, nothing in the slack way his mouth moved, nothing in the clumsy way he lifted his hands.

For a wavering moment she hesitated. His mouth opened, his tongue fluttering behind blood-ribboned teeth, and she drove her sword into his chest. He swayed, and she twisted the blade sharply. The edge grated and caught against bone. His knees buckled first, and when he toppled, she pushed him, sliding the sword free.

She forced her thoughts blank and stepped past him, her gaze lifting and finding Bodhi.

Backed against the wall, the vampire was still moving, spinning and lashing out at Anomen. A scything swing of his sword sent her back a pace and viciously, Tayna hurled herself at her. She ploughed into the vampire, hard enough that she sprawled. Tayna landed roughly across her, her knees jarring.

The vampire twisted, rolling herself over, her mouth widening in a startled snarl. One dipping slash of her sword had the vampire's throat open, the blood leaking black and oily. Another had her pinned through the shoulder, her hands scrabbling at Tayna, at her arms, at the solid line of the blade. Faster than she wanted – _she wanted it to last, she wanted it to hurt, she wanted it to drive the bitch mad_ – she hammered the stake into Bodhi's chest.

The vampire vanished, collapsing into mist. Without speaking, Tayna was on her feet and following to the huge ornate coffin. She heaved the lid up and the stake arced down and down into the writhing shape there.

"Tayna. Tayna," Imoen said, and she felt her sister's hand on her wrist, halting her. "She's done. She's dead."

"She," she said, and her voice ran dry. She dropped the stake. "You're – does it feel..?"

"Yes," Imoen said, and she pulled Tayna around and into a hug. "_Yes_. It worked. It's – it's different. It's me. I'm me."

"Oh, gods." She swallowed against the constriction in her throat. "That's good. That's very good."

"So we just need to get ourselves close enough to Irenicus when he carks it, and you'll be fine," Imoen whispered fiercely.

"Yes. Yes, I suppose so." Carefully, she extricated herself from her sister. "Look. I just need…"

"Of course."

Gingerly, she leaned over the wizard's prone body. He smelled cold, and when she cautiously touched the side of his neck, she found icy skin and no pulse and the awful marks the vampire had left on him. She rocked back on her heels and grimaced. "Ah, hells. What do I do now?"

"Stake him?" Imoen asked, gently wry.

She snorted. "Apart from that. You ever read of anything that can counter this?"

"Not sure. He wouldn't've been turned for long. Maybe not turned the whole way?"

"Great. Meaning I should've hit him really hard instead of skewering him?"

"Hey," Imoen said, sharper. "We don't know that."

"What do we know?"

"Vampires. It's all about getting your blood drained and drinking theirs."

Tayna grimaced. "Lovely."

"Look," Imoen said. "I'll have a look around. You said last time you found books here?"

"Yes."

"There might be something. I'll keep thinking."

"Yes."

"I might even bully Jaheira into helping."

"Yes."

"And after that we'll do an elegant dance, right in front of that bath full of blood."

"Yes."

Imoen slapped the side of her arm. "Wake up."

"Waking up." Tayna sheathed her sword, the metal sliding slick and filthy into the scabbard. She set her shoulders against the wall and silently concluded that whatever gods cared to look after her luck had clearly run the other way since she stepped inside the catacombs.

She looked at the wizard's supine sprawl until her eyes blurred. Angrily, she swiped her knuckles across her eyes and made herself look again, until she was looking at the wound she had left in his chest, the skin there ashen, the blood dark. She tipped her head back and closed her eyes, the fury eventually seeping away.

"Hey." Imoen's voice, and then her hand, on Tayna's shoulder. "You alive?"

She cracked her eyes open. "Find anything?"

"Something," Imoen said carefully.

"What kind of something?"

* * *

"You're sure about this?" Imoen asked.

Tayna paused. She was aching, shoulders to heels, and she had a new set of bruises across both shoulders and down the side of one leg. She also had a lifeless wizard strapped to a horse behind her, and a second, smaller horse beside that one, both of them huffing into the chill evening air.

"Not at all," she said. "But, hells. From what you pulled from their library, and from I know about that damn temple, I figure I should try."

"I could come with you."

"I'll travel faster like this."

"I know." Imoen shrugged. "I just don't like the idea of you on your own, you know. If it doesn't work."

Tayna hesitated. "I know. You got the shiny thing Elhan wanted?"

"One Rhynn Lanthorn wrapped up and currently being looked after by Jaheira. Apparently she thought I was likely to lose it. Or break it. Or steal it."

Tayna laughed. "She wouldn't necessarily be wrong."

"You got everything?"

"Healing potions, food, weapons." Tayna reached up, stroked the warm arch of the horse's neck. "They give you any trouble at the guildhouse, tell them I'll skin them when I get back."

"Course." Imoen scrubbed a hand through the thatch of her hair. "Take care, alright?"

"Always. And besides," she said, and managed a grin. "I want to see the look on his face when he realizes we saved his life."

She swung up into the saddle, settling herself. Beneath her, the bay horse snorted, shaking his mane out. She gathered up the reins into gloved hands and wondered if she needed to say anything else.

"Don't be gone too long," Imoen said, and smiled.

"I'll try."

She wove her way out of the city carefully, the other horse tethered and trotting along behind. The day broke into a bright dawn by the time she cleared the last of the sloping houses, the road winding away ahead. She rode cautiously, turning the horses off the road whenever she heard the rattling clatter of a merchant caravan, or else the raucous clamour of mercenaries.

When the night descended, she urged the horses on faster, aware of nothing but the whipping of the wind. Overhead, the clouds parted enough that the fall of the moonlight picked out the twists of the road.

The dawn brought the needling awareness of exhaustion, her hands cramped and slipping around the reins. She stopped, silently ordering herself to sleep. She drifted, her thoughts already on how quickly she could cross the distance to the Umar Hills and beyond, just beyond, to the jumbled stone of the temple there.

The temple that had once belonged to Amaunator.

A day later she stumbled through the crumbling archways, the horses pattering along behind her because she had tried to heft the wizard out of the saddle and her knees had given way under his weight.

It was stupid, she thought.

It was an absurd, sharply desperate hope that she could not quite shape, even to herself. Ragged words that Imoen had pieced together, and she had seen them and wondered, wondered whether there might be truth there, waiting.

Awkwardly, she loosened the ties that kept Edwin lashed to the horse. When he slid, she caught him and staggered. Somehow she dragged him across the stone, fragments catching at her feet and his robes. She heaved him into place under the statue and turned back, reaching into her pack for the heart, the wrapped heart, the heart she had carved from Bodhi's chest.

The cloth around it was heavy and sagging and stained. She pressed her fingers against it, once and then twice, before she laid it in front of the statue.

Briefly she wondered if she needed to pray. If she needed to frame the words she should say, whatever they might be, before the god she hoped still noticed this temple answered.

Words from a Bhaalspawn, she thought, and stayed silent.

Beneath the statue, his body heaved. His eyes snapped open, wild and dark and rolling. One hand slammed against the ground, long fingers stiffening.

"Edwin?"

"What is it," he grated, his voice thick, unused somehow.

"You're alive again."

He shoved upright, the colour not quite all there in his face yet. "Yes," he said. "Yes. I – I see."

She waited, halfway to crouching. "Keep breathing. If you can."

"I can," he snapped.

"You're such an inconvenience, you know."

Edwin glared. As brusquely, he combed his hands through his hair, raking the disheveled strands back into some semblance of order. "_I_ am an inconvenience? Says she who failed to save me from the vampire _before_ this happened?"

"Most people would just say thank you."

"I am not most people," he ground out.

"That certainly hasn't slipped my notice."

He pushed himself up to his feet, his first step turning into an ungainly stumble. Without thinking, she caught his arm, leaning into the crook of his shoulder.

"And you're heavier than you look," she muttered.

He swayed, and she waited until he had one hand splayed against the wall. "The vampire," he said. "Bodhi."

"Dead. Well, more dead. Actually dead. Dust. Vicious bitch took a beating, though."

"One you were happy to provide, I hope?"

She stared at his hand, fanned out and shaking against the wall. "You'd've been proud. I think I was ready to kill her with my bare hands if I had to."

"Where are we?"

"You remember the temple to Amaunator, in the Umar Hills?"

"(That useless corner of the realms?) Yes."

"That useless corner of the realms just saved your worthless hide, wizard." She heard the uneven rhythm of his breathing and jostled him upright again. "Come on. Let's get you outside."

Somehow she walked him through the empty, cold corridors, the horses trudging along behind. It was slow going, Edwin's breathing still ragged and shallow, footsteps uncertain, his poise robbed of all grace.

Outside, in the green spread of a glade, she sat him down and told him to stay before quartering the treeline. As briskly, she tethered the horses loosely and set a small fire, the flames sending the shadows scattering. The night was blustery, and she burrowed deeper into the folds of her cape. He growled when she asked if he was hungry, but she persisted with water and one of the healing potions until he gave in. Afterwards, she dug the wineskin out of her pack and sat beside him, aware of his silence, of the way his hands kept lifting, almost touching his collar, almost brushing his neck.

Mildly, she said, "Dragged your lifeless carcass out of the city."

Edwin scowled. "Yes, thank you."

"Carried you all the way to this dump of a temple," she said, and fought away the urge to grin at him. "You know you owe me now, right?"

He paused, mouth half-open before he closed it again. "Really," he said eventually. "I don't recall _asking_ to be brought back to life."

Tayna snorted. "That's absurd, Edwin. Even for you."

"Relevant, though."

"Fine. Next time I'll leave you there."

The corners of his mouth twitched. "Feel free to."

She tugged his cowl up and over his head, the folds soft and worn against her fingers. "Now you look like you."

"What do you mean?"

She hesitated, her gaze on the twisting flames. "Do you remember it at all?"

"No. No, I – no, not really."

"You were grey." She heard him shifting beside her, robes rustling as if he was turning to look at her properly. "Your skin was like ash. Your eyes...gods. It was like there was nothing in them. Nothing left of you. And your throat - hells, she hadn't bitten you. It was more like she'd been searching for your spine by way of your neck."

"Tayna," he said, quietly.

"No, it's fine," she said, and summoned a smile. "I drove my sword right through you and twisted it a couple of times and that seemed to put you down for the count."

"Charming. Even for you."

"Thought you'd like it. Besides, didn't we have a deal?"

"Of sorts."

"That's it," she said mildly. "Next time, I'm carving you a headstone and leaving you there."

"So you keep threatening." He glanced around the edges of his cowl at her. "And you know that is not at all what I meant."

"I did. I must've been spending too much time around you."

"That I suspect you can blame yourself for."

"Well," she said, and nudged him. "You did come to Spellhold with me."

"I recall having little say in that matter, either. (And little option but to endure the loquacious way her mouth runs, even now.)"

"_I'm_ the loquacious one? Hypocrite."

She passed the wineskin across. When he fumbled with it, his hands shaking, she said nothing, only waited.

Eventually, she said, "I, ah. I was scared."

"Vampires are indeed a tremendous foe. Even for someone who counts beating a walking oak tree like Sarevok among their victories."

Tayna groaned. "Gods. I'm here, pouring out the bleeding pieces of my heart at you, and you go and say something like that."

He shifted beside her. "Then tell me what frightened you, Child of Bhaal."

"You're impossible." She stared at the flames, twisting against each other. "You did. No – that's not right. Not you. The thought of what had happened to you. The thought that I couldn't do anything about it."

"But you did," he said, his voice roughening.

"Yes, yes. I know. Proves all my fears unfounded, as usual."

"No," he said, almost whisper-quiet. "That is not what I meant. Not at all."

"What did you mean?"

"I've already thanked you at least twice. Go fish for compliments from someone else."

"The horses aren't all that talkative." She lifted the wineskin again.

"It was cold," the wizard said, haltingly.

When he fell silent again, she waited. Across the glade, the trees rattled, and somewhere nearby, an owl called. She wondered if she had ever seen him so wrung through, so worn, so small somehow. Eventually, she reached out, pulled his cowl down, and said, "I changed my mind. It's too dark to see you properly, otherwise."

He scowled, purloined the wineskin and said, "There was such strength in her, the vampire."

"Yes. I know."

"When she – when it happened – it was unlike anything else I have ever encountered. My voice, my magic, myself, it was all – simply no longer there."

"You know, I was pretty petrified just looking at you," she admitted. "I can't imagine what it would've been like feeling it happen."

"Edwin Odesseiron does not know the meaning of the word petrified. (Well, except in the _literal_ sense of course…and that was a mistake only occasionally made, in any case.)"

"Sure," she said, and grinned. "And don't worry. I won't make you ruin your reputation."

"And how would you attempt to do that?"

"By saying out loud that I know damn well you would've done the same for me."

Edwin glared at her. "You just said it out loud."

"Your listening comprehension remains stellar."

"How do you know what I would do?"

She bit back a smile. "Because I'm the only person around here that you can have a decent conversation with. Apart from when you talk to yourself, of course."

He was still looking at her, she noticed, eyes narrowed and studying as if she had just handed him some intricate, treacherous riddle.

"And what if," Edwin said, and paused, struggling with the words. "What if you just happened to be right?"

"Then I'd bask in the glory of knowing that you just said I was right."

"Of course you would, you annoying creature."

"That's me," she said. "Surpassing low expectations wherever I go."

"Evidently so."

"You want me to tell you it'll all be alright?"

"_No_."

"Then I won't," she said archly.

He growled something to himself and passed the wineskin across. His fingers trembled against hers and without thinking, she grabbed the wineskin with one hand and the back of his wrist with the other. Wordlessly, she held onto him until he stopped shaking, until he subsided into something very like stillness. She pressed the wineskin back into his free hand.

"This," Edwin said, and drank clumsily. "Is perhaps the most absurd thing you or I have ever done."

"Perhaps," she said, and noted that he made no move to shift away from her, or to extricate his wrist from her grasp. "You're the one that got bitten."

He opened his mouth, shrugged, and a smile ghosted across his lips. "Yes."

The wind tugged and pulled at the fire. Tayna felt the chill in the air and the night slipping away and discovered that she had no particular inclination to move. Instead, she slid her hand over the back of his, her fingers smaller and rougher, scarred and catching against his rings. For long, perturbed moments, he stared down at their linked hands as if he was not sure what he was looking at.

"I thought I'd lost you." It was stupid and it was because she was exhausted but she said it anyway, the words tumbling out and raw with truth.

The wizard lifted his head. "Not that easily," he said. "However hard you might be trying."

She spluttered into a surprised laugh. "Right." She hesitated a moment longer and asked, "Can I see?"

Without looking away from her, he reached up with his free hand and loosened the knots at his collar, pushing the folds of fabric aside. The marks there were dark and crossing in long arcs beneath the stubborn line of his jaw. Another curved around the side of his neck, across the place where the blood would flutter just beneath the skin.

"Gods," she muttered. She reached for him, briefly, her fingertips tracing just beneath his jaw. There, she found the welcome, warm rhythm of his pulse. "Still looks awful."

"Then you should have hastened to my rescue all the sooner."

"Yes," she said, and rolled her eyes at him. "I've never seen you like this before."

"I have never had the misfortune to be attacked by a vampire before." He frowned. "Well. Not to the extent that something like _this_ should have happened."

"No," she said. "You should go and get some rest. And don't bother saying something smart about just having had a couple of days with your eyes closed."

"What a shame." He stood, his fingers slipping away and leaving her hand empty.

"Hey, Edwin?"

He stopped. "What?"

"How's your neck feeling now?"

"I am not dignifying that with any kind of an answer at all. (Unless the answer can be shaped in the form of a carefully directed fireball.)"


End file.
